Apple begins construction on two massive 338,000 square-foot buildings at new Prineville, Oregon data center

The 10,000 Sq ft. building currently on Apple’s property in Prineville

Following reports in February that Apple purchased roughly 160-acres of land in Prineville, Ore., for $5.6 million, The Oregonian reported today Apple has now started the first $68 million phase of construction. The new land will apparently consist of two 338,000 square-foot buildings behind a 10,000 square-foot modular data center it has already built on the property. The $68 million figure for the first phase of construction covers one of those two buildings, according to plans filed with Crook County and dug up by The Oregonian:

Apple has begun work on the first, $68 million phase of its new Prineville data center, clearing and flattening land for the one of two, 338,000 square-foot buildings atop the bluff that overlooks town… The price tag covers the cost of one building and two “data halls” inside. Plans filed with the city and Crook County last summer call for adding a second building and, eventually, 14 more data halls.

According to the report, the new project is expected to “run in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars once it’s outfitted with powerful servers to run Apple’s iCloud service.” Apple said previously that the data center would employ dozens of people once opened and hundreds during the construction process.

It also promised the new data cater would run on “100 percent renewable energy.”