$25B data center planned west of Phoenix wins key approval from county

Azcentral.com, written by John Leos

A massive $25 billion data center project slated for the West Valley is one step closer to becoming reality.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to allow industrial use on 2,000 unincorporated acres near Tonopah on Dec. 10. Supervisor Thomas Galvin recused himself during this portion of the meeting because his law firm, Rose Law Group, was presenting an item under separate agenda items.

The land-use change is the latest approval for a data center corridor expected to accommodate 1 gigawatt of power, supporting the nation’s artificial intelligence boom.

The data center project is being developed by Arizona Land Consulting, led by Anita Verma-Lallian, and venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive and CEO of Social Capital. Arizona Land Consulting and investors acquired the land in a $51 million deal earlier this year. 

“Our goal is not simply to develop land, but it’s to contribute to a thoughtful, sustainable pattern of growth that benefits residents and strengthens the county’s future,” said Verma-Lalllian at the meeting. 

The site, known as Hassayampa Ranch, is situated in a sparsely populated, unincorporated area of far western Maricopa County, just outside the city limits of Buckeye.

Two adjacent landowners expressed their opposition to the project at the Supervisors’ meeting, and two petitions submitted to county officials collectively contained the signatures of 100 Tonopah and Buckeye residents opposed to the plan. 

Their concerns center around air and noise pollution, decreasing property values and the high water and energy consumption associated with data centers, especially because the neighboring communities are dependent on groundwater.

“We acknowledge that artificial intelligence is currently being pursued with the intensity of a gold rush,” said Kathleen Fletcher, whose lived for five years adjacent to the site, at the meeting.  

“It is critical that Maricopa County residential areas are not overtaken by the industry at the expense of our residents and quality of life,” said Fletcher, who also pointed out that the long-term jobs offered by the data center were not likely to be filled by Tonopah residents. 

Wendy Riddell, an attorney representing Arizona Land Consulting, said the firm was committed to working with neighbors to address their concerns through the rezoning process. 

Building data centers in the desert 

The data center mega-site is located west of the White Tank Mountains on mostly undeveloped desert lands near the confluence of the Jackrabbit Wash and the Hassayampa River. 

The 2,000-acre property was approved for a master-planned community called Hassayampa Ranch with over 5,700 homes in 2008, but the development was never built. 

Buckeye city staff and the White Tank Mountains Conservancy, an environmental conservation group, initially opposed the change to industrial use because of its potential negative impact to a nearby wildlife corridor along Jackrabbit Wash and the Hassayampa River.

“There is a long planning history of preserving the Hassayampa River as a wildlife and recreational corridor. Projects like this must be designed to avoid the river corridor, floodway and buffers,” wrote Laurel Arndt, program manager for the White Tank Mountains Conservancy, in an email to the Maricopa County Planning and Development staff opposing the land use change. 

Buckeye officials withdrew their opposition after Arizona Land Consulting agreed to work with the city, the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the White Tank Mountains Conservancy to mitigate the impact on wildlife movement in their planning.

Huge growth planned for the far West Valley 

The Hassayampa Ranch data center will join several large-scale development projects planned west of the White Tank Mountains, including Teravalis, a master-planned community in Buckeye that could include 100,000 new homes, and a 25,000-acre “smart city” project called Belmont backed by billionaire Bill Gates. 

Last year, 5,000 acres of the Belmont property near Hassayampa Ranch were approved for heavy industrial use by the Board of Supervisors. 

The site is also near the planned future Interstate 11 highway, connecting Wickenburg to Casa Grande, which could fuel rapid growth in the far West Valley. The freeway is still decades away from being built, and planning is currently stalled due to an environmental lawsuit.

With the Board approving the change from residential to industrial, the Hassayampa Ranch property will move into the next phase of rezoning and site planning. 

Riddell said at the meeting that Arizona Land Consulting hopes to file zoning applications within the next 30 to 60 days. 

Fletcher said that she and the other neighbors plan to oppose the data center throughout the zoning and permitting process. 

In response to the opposition, Supervisor Debbie Lesko, who represents the project area in District 4, said that whether it was a housing development or a data center, something was bound to be built on the vacant land. 

“I think it’s unrealistic to think that it will be barren desert for eternity,” Lesko said at the meeting. “I’m comfortable that industrial and rural residential can coexist.” 

Another massive data center complex, a $33 billion development on 3,300 acres, is being planned for Pinal County near Eloy. The project is led by Kuldip Verma, CEO of Vermaland, who is the father of Verma-Lallian, but the two projects are not related.