Chicago Construction News staff writer
Construction is underway on HydraVault’s new 20-megawatt data center in Chicago’s South Loop, a purpose-built facility designed to support high-density, AI-driven computing workloads.
The two-storey, approximately 76,000-sq. ft. building is being developed to serve research institutions, universities, government agencies and other organizations requiring advanced computing capacity. The project is designed by Gensler and is targeting Tier III data centre standards, with significant redundancy built into power and cooling systems.
According to Power Construction, crews have completed installation of 170 steel piles to support foundations extending roughly 35 feet below grade. The project is expected to move into the underground foundations phase next month, with concrete beams, pile caps and initial utility work scheduled to begin.
The facility is engineered to deliver up to 20 MW of total power capacity and support rack densities of up to 200 kilowatts, significantly higher than conventional data centres. The design incorporates a hybrid liquid and air cooling system, including closed-loop cooling strategies aimed at improving energy efficiency and supporting advanced GPU-based workloads.
The downtown location provides direct access to Chicago’s primary fiber and connectivity hubs, including low-latency connections to major interconnection facilities, positioning the project to support data-intensive and real-time computing operations.
Power Construction is leading construction activities on the site, with work currently focused on structural and foundation systems. Early user access to the facility is anticipated in late 2026, following completion of major construction phases.
