Colorado developers are considering building a massive $12.8 billion data center on nearly 1,000 acres in the West Valley, further increasing the region’s profile in the tech sector.
But not everyone is on board.
Denver-based Tract is asking Maricopa County to rezone 529 acres near Buckeye from rural and residential to industrial to allow construction of the Northwest Campus data center.
For the south campus, Tract is also considering rezoning 435 acres from residential to industrial. The south campus will be adjacent to the northwest campus.
This property is located just south of the Roosevelt Canal. To the east is Tuthill Road and to the west is Perryville Road. Cross both Yuma Road and Jackrabbit Trail.
The site is in unincorporated Maricopa County, bounded by Goodyear to the east and Buckeye to the north and west.
According to the company’s website, Tract is a data center land acquisition and development company. Data centers will be focused on managing large-scale physical infrastructure projects and the associated growth of cloud infrastructure.
Documents filed with the county say the data center will “significantly contribute to the county’s economic growth and vitality.”
The company plans to provide 280 to 300 full-time positions in skilled trades and engineering positions. The company says the median wage for IT jobs in the U.S. in 2021 is about $97,000.
The company said in its filing that the large data center would generate approximately $81 million in annual property and personal property taxes for Maricopa County, with $1.6 billion over 20 years at both the proposed northwest and south campuses. He said it would generate more than $1,000.
And when it comes to traffic, there aren’t that many problems. Data centers have a lower traffic impact than residential or commercial uses, the application notes. The land is currently zoned for residential use, so the current use zone could result in even more traffic. Data hubs don’t create a lot of jobs, so there aren’t that many commuters.
Tract and its future customers will also be responsible for any necessary road improvements.
If it gets to that point. Neighboring cities oppose the proposed data center.
Both Goodyear and Buckeye wrote letters of opposition to the county, citing concerns about traffic and building height.
Ken Garica, Buckeye’s principal planner, said in an email to the county in November that the data center does not meet the land use designation for the residential Buckeye neighborhood.
Garica cited the city’s focus on light industrial land use in specific areas, rather than locating light industrial land, including data centers, in the heart of residential areas.
“Approval of this project would not only create a visual and aesthetic discontinuity between the project and the surrounding area (planned and existing), it would also physically separate more similar uses, and the trail network and have a negative impact on safe routes to school, etc.,” Garika wrote in an email.
A Buckeye City spokesperson said the city had no further comment.
In December, Goodyear Contracts senior planner David Williams wrote a letter of opposition to the county.
The city of Goodyear has architectural design requirements and also imposes a 50-foot height limit on buildings, Williams wrote.
The site would be immediately adjacent to Goodyear to the east. That section is now designated as a neighborhood in the city’s comprehensive plan. The parcel to the north of Buckeye is also designated as residential, meaning the data center will effectively be surrounded by residential areas.
Williams also cited the potential noise from being so close to residential areas and the need to contract with Rural Metro for fire service needs since the project does not fall within the service areas of the cities of Buckeye or Goodyear. He also expressed concern.
In a response filed in city documents, the city of Tract said its concerns were about the project’s location, not the project itself. The response reiterated that data centers have less traffic than residential areas, don’t need to use the city’s water and sewer systems, and can maximize land use.
Due to concerns about building height, Tract lowered the maximum height from 110 feet to 60 feet.
The south and northwest campuses have approximately 4,000 acre-feet of groundwater rights that will be accessed through wells, according to city documents. One acre-foot of water is about 326,000 gallons, which is usually enough to sustain several families for a year.
The proposed development at the northwest campus would require approximately 1,300 acre-feet of water.
The property has groundwater rights, allowing developers to consider this location. To qualify, the land must have been irrigated with groundwater between 1975 and 1980. Rights must be purchased along with the land.
The proposed Tract data center will be part of the region’s rapid growth in the industry.
Phoenix is the second-largest data center market in the country in terms of new capacity leased by users, according to a report released by real estate firm JLL.
JLL said it has 2.8 million square feet of data center space under construction in metro Phoenix and has completed leasing of 748 megawatts of data center capacity in the second half of 2023.
“The development side is very active here,” said JLL managing director Carl Beardsley, who specializes in data centres. “It can be sold as soon as power is confirmed on the site.”
However, data center power demands may be a limiting factor in data center development, he said. For a site to function as a data center, it must have reliable access to a large power supply, which is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain and the process taking longer. he said.
He said the growth in artificial intelligence and reliance on mobile technology will continue to drive the need for data centers across the country, making it difficult to predict what demand and construction needs will be in the coming years. Stated.
“We need data centers to live the kind of lives we lead now,” he said, referring to people’s dependence on smartphones and other technologies used in daily life. .
Net new data center space likely won’t come online until 2025, Beardsley said, as much of the space currently under construction is already leased.
While some major technology companies, including Google, Meta and Microsoft, are building their own data center facilities in metro Phoenix, Beardsley said that is unlikely to be a trend going forward.
“Development cycles are too long for high-tech companies,” he said, meaning high-tech companies may choose spaces developed by companies that specialize in these projects.
JLL said there are approximately 6.9 million square feet of existing data centers in metro Phoenix. More than 2.8 million square feet are under construction, with an additional 2.7 million square feet planned.
Here’s where to contact the reporter: ahardle@gannett.com or call 480-259-8545. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter). @AlexandraHurdle.
