Gensler files plans for a 60-building data center in Utah

May 23. Gensler released renderings of the Stratos Hyperscale Data Center, a 60-building development planned for Box Elder County, Utah. When complete, the facility will rank among the largest data centers globally.

The scale is the story. Sixty buildings. Not six. The renders show modular structures arranged in a grid across desert terrain, each building low-slung and identical. The repetition reads less as architecture and more as infrastructure at its purest: function stacked until the site is full.

Gensler's design leans into the industrial register. No sculptural flourishes, no attempts to soften the form. The buildings are metal-clad boxes with minimal fenestration. Cooling systems dominate the rooflines. The palette is gray, beige, and more gray. This is the aesthetic of logistics, not amenity.

Box Elder County sits northwest of Salt Lake City, a location chosen for proximity to power grids and favorable utility rates. The county has been quietly positioning itself as a data-center corridor for the past five years. Stratos is the largest commitment to date.

The development timeline wasn't disclosed. Neither was the anchor tenant. Gensler's release focused on capacity and site logistics rather than occupancy or phasing. That's the tell: this is a build-to-suit at hyperscale, likely spoken for before the first render was made public.

The closer question is what happens when 60 identical buildings land in a county with a population under 60,000. The infrastructure arrives. The jobs follow, or don't. The renders show the site at full build, not the decade of construction it will take to get there.