Two distinct interpretations converged last week as the backers of a hyperscale data center at 20-Mile Bend sought and received a near-three month postponement.
The owners of most of the 202-acre property west of the Arden community said the delay until July 15 would enable them to continue work to reduce impacts and complete studies to win community support.
The opponents led by the recently formed Western Palm Beach Community Alliance put a positive spin on the postponement, viewing the delay as an opportunity to continue to build opposition to the plan.
“This shows our efforts to fight this project are working!” Ben Brown, an Arden resident and alliance board member, wrote on Facebook Friday. “This will give us more time to prepare and organize.”
READ MORE: Hearing over Palm Beach County's contentious data center has been delayed
The Stop the Palm Beach Data Center Project Tango Facebook page, started in December, has 1,500 followers. Opponents have flooded county commissioner inboxes with emails detailing objections to the proposal to increase the site’s data center space from 200,000 square feet, as approved in 2016, to 1.8 million square feet.
Landowner PBA Holdings, through project manager Ernie Cox, said at a raucous February town hall meeting the company would seek a reduction to 1 million square feet of data center space by mid-March.
He said there would be no change to the request for 1.2 million square feet of warehouse space on 64 acres in the middle of the site. That land is owned by a different company, WPB Logistics — backed by TPA Group of Atlanta. Overall, the plan called for 1.9 million square feet of warehouse space.
But the resubmission never came.
Instead, facing an April 23 hearing, the developer’s representative, Joe Verdone, on Thursday asked for and received an extension until July 15.
Change category to heavy industrial
Opponents are ready to argue that the county hasn’t kept up with the times. A data center in 2016, then classified as light industrial, is not the same as the hyperscale data centers of today.
They argue it must be reclassified as heavy industrial but county staff maintain that they must review the project based on the rules on the books now.
Opponents fear excessive electrical and water use and constant and dangerous noise. They say the complex is too close to the Arden neighborhood of 2,300 homes and Saddle View Elementary School, which opened in August.
“There’s just no benefit here and people see that,” Brown said in an interview.
The developers, calling their site the Central Park Commerce Center, argue that it will get electricity directly from a neighboring natural-gas fueled Florida Power & Light Co. plant, it will use a closed-loop water coolant system that won’t tax area resources and that the proposal fits the framework laid out for the site in 2016, before Arden existed.
For public benefit, the developers say the project will expand the local tax base; create high-skill, high-wage jobs; support additional businesses and services; generate long-term public revenue; and diversify the regional economy.
About 400 residents packed Mayor Sara Baxter’s Project Tango Town Hall on Feb. 25, hooting, booing and shouting questions to the developer and county representatives.
Baxter, who is seeking a second County Commission term representing the district, assured residents she would vote against the project, potentially triggering her recusal from the commission’s deliberations because the zoning proposal is considered quasi-judicial under state law.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
