Ads
A family in Wisconsin received an early and very nice Christmas present from Microsoft. The Creuziger family in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, just sold 407 acres of their land to the folks in Redmond for a whopping $76 million.
According to The Milwaukee Business Journal (via The Verge), the parcel of land includes the Land of the Giants pumpkin farm with a 9-acre corn maze. The property was valued at $598,400 before Microsoft’s offer, which means the family basically won the lottery with this deal.
Originally, the family was offered about a third of Microsoft’s final deal way back in 2017 by the local Mount Pleasant government. At the time, the plan was to sell that land to Foxconn for a proposed manufacturing plant. However, the Creuziger family wisely passed on that offer. In the end, Foxconn ended up cutting back its plans for building such a plant.
That meant Microsoft could come in and make an offer for the land so it could build a new data center. The company needs to expand its footprint as it grows its cloud and AI-based services with new server locations.
In addition to the land owned by the Creuziger family, Microsoft purchased 641 acres of adjacent land owned by the town of Mount Pleasant. The company ended up spending nearly $100 million on these transactions.
There’s no word on when the new data center will begin construction, but Microsoft says it will be spending up to $1 billion on its efforts. It also plans to hire at least 200 people for the new center and may end up hiring a total of 460 people.
In the meantime, the Creuziger family is wisely trying to stay out of the spotlight with its new windfall of money. The family’s attorney issued a statement saying, “The family wishes the village and Microsoft well, and they would appreciate people respecting their privacy.”
