U.S. Bank has announced plans to build a $250 million data center in Chaska that will eventually employ 18 workers.

The bank will partner with Dallas-based Stream Data Centers on the 56,000-square-foot facility, which should take one year to build.

"The thing that we like is that these are higher-skill jobs, and the chances are that those workers might end up moving out here in time," said Mark Windschitl, mayor of Chaska, a southwest metro city in Carver County.

"The biggest thing is we have our own power company, and the data center will be a big power user," Windschitl said, so the city will benefit from electricity revenue as well as from property taxes.

Chaska's City Council approved a tax abatement Monday night that is valued at nearly $548,000 over 20 years to support the project. Windschitl said he also just received a $250,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) and the regional development group Greater MSP to help defray part of the estimated $1.13 million in infrastructure improvements that will be needed at an electric substation.

The proposed data center will be built in the west-central part of the city, he said, in a small industrial park that already has two data centers owned by Stream Data Centers and UnitedHealthcare.

"It will be a facility where we will process data for many of our business applications, and will act as a backup to our primary data center, when needed," said U.S. Bank spokesman Dana Ripley.

DEED will also provide a $287,000 grant from the state's job creation fund once the center is up and running. The Minneapolis-based bank could be eligible as well for sales tax incentives under the state's data center program.

More than 25 new or refurbished data centers have been completed in Minnesota since 2012, according to DEED officials, and the projects represent a capital investment of more than $1.8 billion. Nearly 90 percent of them are in the Twin Cities, which ranks eighth among the nation's large metro areas for the size of its data-processing workforce.

"Minnesota's data center industry supports hundreds of jobs statewide," said DEED Commissioner Shawntera Hardy in a statement.

Jeff von Gillern, vice chairman of U.S. Bank's technology and operations services, said the state-of-the-art center will ensure that customer information is securely managed and that service delivery will be "exceptional."

U.S. Bank's parent company, U.S. Bancorp, claimed $454 billion in assets as of Sept. 30. Its system, U.S. Bank National Association, is the fifth-largest commercial bank in the nation with offices in 25 states.

The Chaska project is scheduled to break ground in the spring, with completion in early 2018.

Tom Meersman • 612-673-7388