Data center proposals have gone dormant on the Treasure Coast following residential opposition and threats of restrictive regulations. But a new wave of proposals may be gearing up once again.
The Treasure Coast received a flurry of proposals for massive, industrial-sized data centers in St. Lucie and Martin counties in a relatively brief amount of time. Developers have scrapped, withdrawn and suspended their ambitious proposals. Others have disappeared without explanation.
Neighboring residents in rural St. Lucie County and Indiantown soundly rejected what would have been among the largest capital investment projects in Treasure Coast’s history over environmental concerns and worries about resource demands. A single hyperscale data center, for example, could have a larger electricity consumption than all households combined on the Treasure Coast.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, who vowed to curb development of hyperscale date centers, signed SB 484 into law May 7. This law requires data centers to pay the “full cost” of their electricity consumption and infrastructure upgrades, which would prevent passing rising utility rates to nearby homeowners.
Florida is the first state in the nation to enact a binding statute that prevents utility companies from passing data center electricity and infrastructure costs onto residential ratepayers, said Mark McNees, director of Social and Sustainable Enterprises at Florida State University.
“Until last week, Florida households were positioned to subsidize the most profitable companies in the world by absorbing infrastructure costs those companies should pay themselves,” McNees said.
“Companies that can pay their own way will still build in Florida,” he said. “Companies whose economics only work when someone else covers the grid bill will go elsewhere, which is exactly the sorting mechanism the statute was designed to create.”
Will St. Lucie County data center return?
St. Lucie County Commissioner Cathy Townsend predicted in January that Sentinel Grove Technology Park — a proposed $13.5 billion, 1,218-acre data center that was code-named “Project Jarvis” — would be smothered by state regulations.
“I was responding based on what I was hearing out of Tallahassee at the time,” Townsend said in an email to TCPalm.
There has been no activity from the data center’s developers, who were waiting on the outcome of new legislation at the state level. The project has remained “on hold” for months, according to county records.
“My understanding was that once the bill was signed, they planned to return to the BOCC to seek approval,” Townsend said.
Developers associated with the project declined to comment.
Will FPL develop data centers?
In Indiantown, Silver Fox 606 — a 2.2 million-square-foot data center proposal — was withdrawn April 29 without explanation. DeSantis announced April 23 that he would sign SB 484 into law.
Indiantown, however, opened the door to data center development on property owned by Florida Power & Light. Village Council members unanimously agreed a data center could be built on 5,700 acres of company-owned land that was recently annexed into the village.
FPL has yet to acknowledge publicly what it plans to do with the land.
The company has publicly supported the recently signed legislation.
“This is another great example of Florida getting things right,” said FPL President Scott Bores in a news release. “The goal is simple: make sure the cost stays with the company driving the demand, not with Florida families.”
Jack Randall is TCPalm’s economy and real estate reporter. You can reach him at jack.randall@tcpalm.com.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Florida data center plans have gone dark, but not all have been killed
Reporting by Jack Randall, Treasure Coast Newspapers / Treasure Coast Newspapers
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