The landscape at the ChicagoWest Business Center has seen a myriad of changes over the past two years. Last fall, Curran Contracting started the dirt work for three additional buildings at the DeKalb Data Center for Mortenson. These new buildings will total more than 1,500,000 SF. Curran Contracting’s excavation division is performing the mass grading, structural excavation, and structural backfill. Our asphalt paving division is also providing the paving for the “city” of temporary logistics facilities needed to facilitate over 1,500 trades personnel on this project. Once the first phase of this project is completed, this 300 acre site will house over 3,000,000 SF of data center space, a facility operations building, an operations warehouse, and two electrical substations.

• Facebook has announced it will build an $800 million data center in the Chicago-area city of DeKalb, Illinois. The social media giant has selected Mortenson as the general contractor, and Krusinski Construction Co. will participate in the design-build of the necessary new infrastructure.
• Renewable energy will power the 907,000-square-foot data center, which will also use 80% less water than other similar facilities. Infrastructure work includes the repaving of local roads, construction of almost 3 miles of water lines and 1.5 miles of sewer system extensions. When complete the data center will be LEED Gold certified.
• The project, located on a 500-acre campus, is expected to employ as many as 1,200 workers during peak construction activity. Mortenson has dedicated a page on its website to the project and said it will post updates there, as well as information for contractors and suppliers interested in bidding on the data center.

DeKalb Landfill Project

This Spring, Waste Management awarded Curran Contracting a second cell excavation project located at their DeKalb Landfill. This project includes excavation of the new cell 1B, cell liner placement, leachate stone placement, and perimeter berm construction as part of the new cell construction. The overall excavation quantity includes 650,000 CY of earthwork. The final phase of the work will include placement of the final cover material at the completed portion of the West Unit Final Cover.