Compass centers max out city permit software

Published 2:52 pm Monday, August 4, 2025

The true size of a $10 billion data campus project from Compass Data Centers has city officials working through one small snag: Meridian’s permitting software doesn’t count that high.

Building Inspector Scott Sollie told the City Council last week that the current software used to calculate permits has a maximum limit of $99 million for the cost of projects. While that has never been an issue before, he said, each of the eight data centers planned for the data campus comes in at $300 million to $500 million.

“It’s a project that our existing permitting software is not designed to handle,” he said.

Sollie said the plan his department developed is to accept the $99 million maximum limit for projects above $100 million or more, with the understanding that the projects’ true cost is much hire. His department also recommends a cap of $25,000 each for plumbing, mechanical and electrical permits.

Under normal circumstances, electrical permits are valued based on the level of service a project is expected to draw, Sollie said. A 200 amp electrical draw, for example, would cost $200. For the data center projects, however, that isn’t practical.

“These buildings are 40 megawatts,” he said. “That’s a tough figure to calculate amps on 40 megawatts.”

With all the costs tallied up, each building is expected to bring in approximately $300,000 in permitting fees alone, Sollie said. For eight buildings, that comes out to $2.4 million.

Compass has said it is looking to build two data centers per year, Sollie said, and work on the first pair is expected to begin in September. The short timeline to start construction means the city wants to move quickly to make sure it doesn’t cause any delay.