Public outcry over a proposal to build a data center in southwest Lakeland has shocked city commissioners, who were largely unaware the plans existed.
Lakeland-based engineering firm Kimley-Horn submitted a conceptual site plan to the city May 5 to build a data center for Ryan Companies U.S. Inc. off of Old Tampa highway and Wilkerson Road, as first reported by LkldNow.
“We have received an application that indicates some form of data center,” City Manager Shawn Sherrouse said. “That is about all we know. We do not have any details on that, we have no idea what kind of city services would have to be provided to that.”
Mayor Sara Roberts McCarley said she had received more than 20 emails before 10 a.m. May 29 from residents largely voicing opposition to the data center. McCarley asked the city staff how residents and the media became aware of a proposal that the commissioners were not informed of.
“From our perspective as a city, how does that information land at LkldNow or another media outlet before a staff meeting when something is applied for,” she asked.
Commissioner Guy LaLonde said he also was receiving phone calls from residents before being aware of the proposed development.
“What basic information we have: This is nowhere near the kind of scale like the Fort Meade proposal,” Sherrouse said. “That’s really about all we know. There’s certainly more to come.”
City staff has scheduled a Developer Review Committee meeting with the developer and its representatives on June 3, Sherrouse said.
What we know: Proposed Lakeland Data Center
Kimley-Horn has submitted a Concept Review Application to the city under the title “Project Swan” for Ryan Companies U.S. Inc. on May 5.
Ryan Companies U.S. Inc. is a national commercial real estate firm based in Minneapolis. The company’s website lists a data center at the University of Iowa and a data center expansion in Johnstonville, Iowa, among its current projects.
“The proposed project is a data center at Old Tampa [Highway] and Wilkinson Road. Part of the site was previously approved for an industrial fertilizer processing facility. The portion in Polk County will be annexed into the city,” reads the description of the scope of work.
The site concept application states the proposed data center would be approximately 600,000 square feet in total size.
By comparison, proposed Fort Meade data center is more than seven times that size at 4.4 million square feet. Both are considered “hyperscale” data centers.
The site plans call for three buildings to be constructed over an area of approximately 40 acres on three properties to the east and west of the West Lakeland Wasteload Facility. Those parcels are owned by Holmes Beach Family Tides LLC, according to Polk County Property Appraiser’s website. Holmes Beach Family Tides’ registered agent is BlackBird Services Inc. in St. Petersburg, a business registered to Tampa-based certified public accountant Brent Metzler, of Metzler Advisory, according to SunBiz’s oneline record.
The largest building would be one story high on the southeast corner of the property, between the Wasteload Facility and Wilkinson Road, with a square footage of about 312,000 square feet. That side is also where a proposed electrical substation would be built.
Two smaller buildings would be constructed on the west side of the Wasteload Facility closer to Old Tampa Highway, measuring 107,180 square feet and 130,000 square feet.
The Lakeland proposal states zero jobs will be created by the construction of the data center. By comparison, the developer of the Fort Meade data center, Maryland-based Stonebridge, has promised it would create 456 jobs when fully operational, with an average salary of more than $100,000.
Water use, electrical demands a top concern
The water and electric needs associated with the operation of large data centers are major issues grabbing the attention of municipal governments and residents across the country, including in Ford Meade. The application submitted with the site plan leaves the estimated water, wastewater and electrical services blank.
The Florida Water & Pollution Control Operators Association, an organization representing utilities that engage or deal in production, treatment and distribution of water, put together a report on water use by data centers in January. The report states a medium-sized data center consumes around 100 million gallons per year, equal to about 1,000 average households, and larger hyperscale facilities can use from 1 million to 5 million gallons of water per day under peak conditions. The water is used in the cooling of equipment.
In Fort Meade, Stonebridge has said it intends to use a closed-loop cooling system and that the facility will need 50,000 gallons per day, a number met with skepticism from critics.
Lakeland is currently permitted by the Southwest Florida Water Management District, commonly called SwiftMud, to withdraw up to 35.03 million gallons per day. The city’s average use, as a whole, has been 24.46 MGD over the past 12 months, according to city spokesman Larry Little.
SwiftMud adopted a policy on Dec. 17, 2025, that requires approval from its Board of Governors for any water-use permit associated with a data center, as Fort Meade officials learned.
Regarding electrical needs, the concept site plan shows the construction of a 3.8-acre electric substation, but no further details are provided.
Lakeland Electric currently has the capacity to generate up to 776.9 megawatts in the summer, increasing to a maximum 839.9 megawatts in the winter due to weather-related efficiencies, Little said. Its 2025 peak load with existing customers was 753 megawatts.
The Fort Meade data center, at more than seven times the size, is expected to use 1.2 gigawatts of electricity, which it will get from Duke Energy.
What’s next?
“The data center proposal will be evaluated against applicable standards and regulations. This proposal will not be addressed in the upcoming commission meeting. The public will be informed on the process and how they are able to participate at a later date,” Little said in an emailed statement.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Proposed Lakeland data center ‘nowhere near’ scale of Fort Meade site
Reporting by Sara-Megan Walsh, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
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