McCarthy tops out NV12 project at Vantage’s campus
Author: Joe Peck
General contractor McCarthy Building Companies recently completed the topping out milestone for hyperscale data centre provider Vantage Data Centers’ second of four planned data centres on its NV1 Campus, located outside of Reno in Storey County, Nevada, USA.
With representatives from Storey County and Vantage leadership in attendance, the project marked major progress on the NV12 facility, the second 64-megawatt (MW) data centre on the campus.
Phase I of the campus provides hyperscalers and large cloud providers with 128 MW of combined critical IT capacity across its NV11 and NV12 facilities. The campus has reportedly created more than 1,200 local construction jobs and generated local economic impact.
McCarthy notes that, just recently, the campus reached more than 1.1 million labour hours on site since breaking ground in May 2024, with zero lost-time incidents through what it describes as a “campus-wide commitment to safe construction practices and innovative methods.”
Austin Osborne, Storey County Manager, explains, “Vantage Data Centers, our developer partners; McCarthy Building Companies, the general contractor on site; and the Storey County team – from Community Development and Planning to Business Development and the Fire Protection District – have worked closely to move this project forward.
“It’s a strong example of effective collaboration, and we’re grateful for the long-term opportunities this project will continue to bring to our community.”
The 260,000ft² (24,155m²), two-storey NV12 facility utilises liquid-to-liquid cooling, similar to NV11, that operates on a closed loop chilled water system to properly cool the systems while requiring only an initial fill.
This more sustainable design is common across Vantage’s data centres, with the company noting it represents its “commitment to sustainable operations and long-term reliability.”
Continued construction during ongoing operation
Jared Carlson, Senior Vice President at McCarthy Building Companies, comments, “This project has demonstrated an incredible commitment to sustainability, safe construction, and operations, and has created a strong sense of community within Storey County.
“Vantage and our design-build partners have been instrumental in creating a campus that will provide significant economic impact to the region and will continue to sustain technological growth in the years to come.”
Following turnover of NV11, NV12 will begin to turn over phased portions of the facility beginning in December 2027, allowing customers to begin operations prior to final completion in early 2029.
As construction progress continues, McCarthy will be piloting the use of an HP Robot to map out the layout of NV12’s walls, blockouts, and backing.
Following the robot’s success on some of McCarthy’s healthcare projects, the team will use the robot to layout all elements on the concrete slab, based on the existing Building Information Model (BIM) layout.
This method allows for greater efficiency and precision as the facility’s core components have already been digitally modelled to the site’s conditions.
Both NV11 and NV12 are being constructed by McCarthy in a design-build effort with Corgan, serving as the campus architect. Key design-build trade partners include: Amfabsteel, Chavez-Grieves, Rosendin Electric, Apollo Mechanical Contractors, Salas O’Brien, Integrated Fire and Security Solutions, Cosco Fire Protection, and Wood Rogers.
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