Microsoft Corp. has closed on 616 acres of Dallas County farmland for just over $95.5 million, finalizing a deal that works out to roughly $155,000 an acre for ground the company plans to turn into a data center campus near Woodward. The seller, a company tied to Dallas-based developer Trammell Crow, had picked up the same land for just over $30.7 million.
According to Business Record, Microsoft paid TC Austin Acquisitions LLC just over $95.5 million for the 616 acres, a figure the Dallas County Recorder's Office confirmed to the outlet. TC Austin Acquisitions LLC is Trammell Crow's acquisition vehicle for the deal, and records show the firm had assembled the land for just over $30.7 million, or nearly $50,000 an acre, before flipping it to the tech giant. That means Microsoft's per-acre price came in at more than three times what Trammell Crow originally paid.
Trammell Crow is a wholly owned subsidiary of CBRE Group, and county recorder's records list Microsoft as the owner of all five parcels that make up the 616-acre site. The land acquisition transactions were recorded on October 15. Neither Microsoft nor Trammell Crow has said whether the $95.5 million price tag reflects only the land itself or whether it also covers additional development-related services or agreements, the outlet reports.
How the Price Stacks Up Against Local Farmland
Microsoft's roughly $155,000-an-acre purchase towers over what farmland typically fetches in Dallas County. Among 2026 Dallas County auction sales with disclosed prices, the average was $12,829 an acre, according to Iowa Land Company records, which tallied 22 auction sales or tracts totaling 2,169.14 acres across the county this year. Even land specifically bought for development in the county has sold for between $24,300 and $34,100 an acre over the past two years, per the same Business Record reporting, putting Microsoft's price at more than four times the upper end of that range.
The broader Iowa farmland market has been flat to soft. The county's average farmland value was $11,883 in 2025, down 1.0 percent from the year before, per Iowa Land Company figures, and Farm Credit Services of America reported that statewide Iowa farmland values were unchanged through the first half of 2026, down 1.4 percent year over year and 4.3 percent below July 2024 levels, as detailed by Agriculture.com. That same outlet reported a 481.3-acre Dallas County farm sold at auction for a combined $5,849,610, or an average of nearly $12,154 an acre, with individual tracts ranging from $9,350 to $15,200 an acre. More recently, WMG Auction recorded two Dallas County tracts of 65.08 acres and 40.47 acres that each sold for $16,000 an acre during the week of October 10-16.
Design Still Years Away
Despite the land now being in hand, actual construction remains a distant prospect. At a community meeting two weeks ago, a Microsoft representative told Woodward residents that campus design had not yet started and that the number of buildings had not been determined, the Business Record reported. The representative estimated design work alone could take two to three years, with another two years needed to complete the first data center after that.
The Woodward City Council voted in June to rezone about 192 acres from agriculture to an eco business park district, clearing a local regulatory path for the project even as the broader campus footprint remains undefined. A Microsoft spokesperson said the company has nothing to share about the acquisition beyond what has already been disclosed, and Trammell Crow spokespeople did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls seeking comment, according to the outlet's reporting.
A Pattern Across Microsoft's Data Center Expansion
The Dallas County deal fits a pattern Microsoft has repeated elsewhere as it races to secure land for data centers. In January 2024, the company acquired 377 acres in Van Meter's Vision Park for nearly $40 million, including $21.49 million, or over $114,500 an acre, paid to Ronald and Debra Gebhardt, and $10.9 million, or $94,785 an acre, paid to Land Concepts LLC, per Business Record's earlier reporting. In 2023, Microsoft bought more than 1,000 acres of agricultural land in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, for another data center project, and the company has also acquired nearly 930 acres of farmland from St. Joe Farm in Granger for $77.5 million, according to Inside Indiana Business.
Trammell Crow's involvement reflects a deeper relationship with Microsoft that stretches back decades. Microsoft selected Trammell Crow's outsourcing services unit in 1999 to manage facilities at its 515,000-square-foot Silicon Valley campus, and the tech company named Trammell Crow its vendor of the year in 2006, the same year the developer secured more than 3 million square feet of office space for Microsoft in the Puget Sound region. As of the second quarter of 2026, Trammell Crow had at least 10 data center sites and controlled more than 7,000 acres for data center development nationwide.
CBRE CEO Bob Sulentic told investors during the first-quarter 2026 earnings call that data center land is one of three major components of Trammell Crow's roughly $30 billion development pipeline, and that the firm had secured dozens of potential data center sites across the country. Sulentic described acquiring, improving and positioning land for resale at higher value as a core competency of the business, and said Trammell Crow was working with major technology companies to line up development approvals and access to electricity and water. Trammell Crow's data center team provides site acquisition, fee development and build-to-suit development services, though neither the company nor CBRE has confirmed its specific role in developing the Woodward campus.
