Bessemer greenlights $14 billion data center with rezoning vote

The plan to develop a $14 billion data center campus in rural Alabama that developers tout as among the “largest private investments in Alabama’s history” is moving forward.

On Tuesday the Bessemer City Council voted 5-2 to rezone nearly 700 acres of rural land just southwest of Birmingham to make way for the development of an 18-building hyperscale data center campus.

Councilmembers Cleo King and Donna Thigpen voted no. King said that it was “the most tough decision” he’s made in 12 years of public service.

Council member Carla Jackson told the crowded chambers right before the vote that the council had listened to residents.

“We’re people, too. So please respect us no matter what the vote is,” Jackson said. “We can’t even go to Walmart because of all the badgering. Yes, this was a very hard decision.”

After two hours of public comment, the decision came after a lawsuit and complaints of secrecy, two separate planning and zoning commission recommendations, non-disclosure agreements signed by city leaders and months of delays from the council on the final vote.

Logistics Land Investment, LLC, owned by Atlanta-based TPA Group, is behind the push for Project Marvel development on mostly timber land off Rock Mountain Lake Road in Bessemer.

Martin Evans, attorney for the developer, called it one of the “largest private investments in Alabama’s history.” He said only about 100 acres would be developed for the data centers.

The project has been met with resistance from local residents, who have packed out public meetings, including this one. While the site is in Bessemer, many of the residents who live closest to it on unincorporated land have expressed concerns over noise, electricity and water usage, environmental protection and other issues with the project.

Brad Kaaber of Logistics Land Investment said the company has conducted studies to assess the project’s impact across a wide variety of issues, including environmental, threatened and endangered species, traffic, wetlands and others. Those studies have not been released publicly.

“We’ve done our series of diligence,” he said. “Otherwise, we would be looking at other sites, but nothing prohibiting development.”

Kaaber also said that the developer will fund capital improvements to the utility provider Warrior River Water Authority to meet the site’s water needs. The developer has requested 2 million gallons of water per day to service the site, Inside Climate News reported.

Charles Miller, policy director of Alabama Rivers Alliance, said he’s concerned that there won’t be regulations for how much water the data center campus will use.

“We have a lot of promises from these developers. We’ve not been able to see any of them in writing,” Miller said. “When it comes to zoning in Bessemer, there’s actually more specifics for how you can build a swimming pool in your backyard than for building a data center.”

Another representative for the developer, Adam Rashid, told the council that the campus will provide 330 permanent, high-tech jobs at an average salary of $115,000. The project also plans for about 1,000 temporary jobs for every year of construction, he added.

Rashid also said that power lines on the site attracted the developer, and that the city could financially benefit from a municipal fee paid by Alabama Power.

Not all public speakers completely opposed the development, though most of them, outfitted in red shirts, did. Four representatives from the Bessemer City School District spoke in favor of the project, citing a positive economic impact from tax benefits to fund schools. A few other Bessemer residents supported the project, too.

At one point, after one woman spoke past the designated three minutes, Council President Jarvis Collier called for the police chief to escort her out.

The city stated in a Facebook post over a month before the vote Tuesday that the council had “full support” for the project.

In June, the data center project came before the city’s planning and zoning commission for a second time after their initial approval provoked a lawsuit by a few residents. That vote of approval was only a recommendation to the council, but a vote of approval from the city council would formally allow the project to move forward.

The proposed data center would include 18 buildings, each about 250,000 square feet, on rural land owned by a timber land property owner on Rock Mountain Lake Road, the Birmingham Business Journal reported. The developer is proposing the $14 billion project as a 4.5 million-square-foot campus, BBJ reported.

The data center campus would take roughly eight years to build in several phases, the developer previously told the city council.

In April, three locals sued the city, alleging officials didn’t provide the proper public notice about the rezoning. They also raised concerns about Bessemer Mayor Kenneth Gulley saying he signed a non-disclosure agreement and couldn’t discuss the project with the public. Shan Paden, an attorney for Bessemer, told AL.com at the time that the city never violated the law and provided adequate public notice.

But then the city restarted the public hearing process.

A hearing for that case is scheduled for Dec. 9, per court records.

In October, the city also approved a zoning change to allow data center projects to develop on land zoned for industrial use, making the path easier for other future projects.

Data centers are a growing industry, seeking to keep up with an increase in cloud computing demands. But they’re newer to Alabama, as the industry is picking up speed here in more rural parts of the state as well as Huntsville, Montgomery and Birmingham.