 has topped out the first building at its $6.6 billion data center campus in Clarksville, Arkansas, placing the final structural beam ...](https://cdn.baxtel.com/data-center/serverfarm-tops-out-first-108mw-building-at-6-6b-arkansas-campus/logo/serverfarm-tops-out-first-108mw-building-at-6-6b-arkansas-campus-featured.webp){kind=logo}
Serverfarm has topped out the first building at its $6.6 billion data center campus in Clarksville, Arkansas, placing the final structural beam on a 300,000 sq ft facility set to deliver 108MW of capacity. Chief executive Avner Papouchado announced the milestone on LinkedIn, with the Wednesday ceremony reported Monday by Data Center Dynamics. The building, on Taylor Road, is the first phase o
Editorial image illustrating Serverfarm's ARK1 data center campus development in Clarksville, Arkansas.f a four-building campus targeted for early 2028 completion.
Four buildings, 432MW
Serverfarm's project page lists four buildings on the 135-acre site north of Interstate 40, beside Johnson Regional Medical Center. Each is designed for 108MW across 300,000 sq ft on two floors, implying 432MW at full buildout. Cooling is air-cooled and closed-loop, with a target PUE of 1.3 or lower.
Serverfarm expects the first two buildings finished by January 2028.
Bonds and the power question
The Clarksville City Council unanimously approved up to $55 billion in industrial revenue bonds for the project in July, according to 5NEWS. The bonds will be placed with an affiliate of the company rather than sold publicly, and the company, not taxpayers, repays them. A community benefits agreement accompanied the vote. Serverfarm projects roughly $558 million in public benefit through 2060, including $548 million in payments in lieu of taxes, $3 million in upfront city and county fees and $2.1 million in construction permit fees.
Power is the harder problem. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported in July that the campus will draw about five times more electricity than Clarksville Connected Utilities can currently supply. Serverfarm says it will fund grid upgrades across the utility's territory at no cost to residents, and plans to use natural gas in the short term before shifting to renewables.
Schools and neighbors
Serverfarm also used the ceremony to announce $150,000 for Clarksville schools, covering student meals, teacher grants and athletic facilities.
"Today we placed the final beam on the first building of Serverfarm's new data center campus," Papouchado wrote, thanking crews from Yates Construction, Nabholz Construction and Eutaw Construction. "We are in Clarksville for the long term. We thank the community accepting us and we are working hard on being a long term good neighbor."
Local reaction has been muted compared with Little Rock and Pulaski County, where residents have protested two planned data centers, the Arkansas Advocate reported in July.
Market context
Arkansas is a new market for the industry. Baxtel tracks 13 data center facilities across 11 providers in the state, with the Little Rock metro accounting for six of them, one under construction. The largest operational facility on record is a 2MW Windstream site in Harrison, which puts the 432MW Clarksville campus in perspective.
Serverfarm, founded by real estate developer Red Sea Group and acquired by Manulife in 2023, expanded its revolving credit facility to $3.89 billion in September, with the Clarksville build among the North American campuses the funding supports. The company also completed a $589 million asset-backed securities offering earlier this year. Baxtel currently lists 17 Serverfarm sites across North America and Europe, and tracks the Clarksville project as an initial site plus a separate 250MW expansion.
Why it matters
Topping out the first hall moves one of the largest private investments in state history, per local reports, from site work to visible steel, on schedule. That matters for a company building against a $3.89 billion credit facility and fresh securitized debt.
The bigger signal is for second-tier markets. Clarksville had a tapped-out grid and a $55 billion bond package behind a project five times larger than its utility can serve, and construction still moved from clearing to topped-out steel in under a year. Small markets with cooperative councils and cheap land can now deliver at hyperscale pace, and capital is following them into these smaller markets.
