Meta quietly assembled its 1,754-acre Alberta data centre site in a single day of transactions, five months before publicly unveiling the $13B project.

On Feb. 6, three consecutive land transfers moved 17 titles in Sturgeon County into the hands of Vibro Information Services, according to Alberta Land Titles records obtained by Connect. The seller group included Suncor Energy, Pembina Pipeline and a Pembina-related company.

The registered land value: $300.1M.

The biggest piece was about 957 acres transferred by 1598313 Alberta, a Pembina-related company, and valued at $163.7M. Suncor sold another 637 acres valued at $109M, while Pembina transferred 160 acres valued at $27.4M.

At the time, Vibro gave little away.

The company had been incorporated in Alberta only six months earlier and used Stikeman Elliott’s Calgary office as its registered address. Meta’s name did not appear in the transfers.

The connection became clearer as the project advanced.

Stikeman later identified itself as Meta’s counsel and said its work included acquiring “almost 2,000 acres” from Suncor and Pembina interests, securing foreign-ownership approvals and negotiating development and servicing agreements.

Pembina’s role did not end with the land sale.

Along with Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Kineticor, it is developing the adjacent 932-MW Greenlight Electricity Centre under a long-term agreement to supply Meta’s campus.

That puts Pembina on both sides of the development: it sold land into Meta’s assembly and remains tied to the site through the infrastructure needed to power it.

Meta finally put its name on the project July 8, announcing its first Canadian data centre at 56111 Range Rd. 223 and breaking ground on the $13B campus.

By then, the land was assembled, foreign-ownership approvals were in place, a master development permit had been secured and the power strategy was well advanced.

Though the sequencing is unusual. Meta expects the data centre to begin operating in 2028, while Greenlight is not scheduled to enter service until 2030.

Pembina has said the data centre customer secured a 907-MW connection to Alberta’s power grid, providing access to electricity as early as 2027 and allowing the development to operate before Greenlight comes online.