- Alachua County residents opposed a rumored large AI data center on 104 acres east of San Felasco Tech City during a May 18 city meeting.
- The rumored data center could consume up to 1.5 million gallons of water daily for cooling, raising infrastructure and environmental concerns.
- Alachua joined a 2025 lawsuit against SB 180, which limits local regulation of data centers, while the county plans restrictions on resource-intensive facilities.
Alachua County residents pressed the Alachua City Commission during the May 18 regular meeting to clarify and oppose a large-scale AI data center rumored for 104 acres east of San Felasco Tech City.
Rumors of the center at the Phoenix Commercial Park first surfaced after Eric Ligman of My Gainesville Realty listed the property for sale on Feb. 13 as a “high megawatt data center development site.”
Over the past few months, concerns from residents surfaced before the City Commission, the Alachua Planning and Zoning Board and the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC). Community members referenced how the facility could negatively impact people and the environment with industrial consumption of power and water used to cool the centers.
Although the URL for the listing still reflects the original data center title, the property is now labeled an “industrial redevelopment opportunity” as of this month.
During Monday’s public comment, over a dozen community members spoke opposing the center, including Turkey Creek Homeowners Association Vice President Dan Rittenhouse.
Rittenhouse said his day job at a technology company relies on data centers like the one rumored for Alachua. He said that while they can bring meaningful economic impacts, the city needed to consider long-term demands that one could put on infrastructure, especially as the site is poised for expansion.
“These modern hyper-scale data centers commonly use cooling that takes a lot of water out of our system,” Rittenhouse said. “For this site that is currently up for sale, which is a 200,000-square-foot facility, it can consume anywhere between 1 million and 1.5 million gallons of water a day. If all of that facility was sold, it could consume as much as six times that. So that’s a real impact.”
Alachua resident Tamara Robbins suggested the city implement a moratorium on data centers in accordance with SB 180, which took effect on July 1, 2025. City Attorney Scott Walker said the city needed to prepare as it will bring even more changes this July 1.
The legislation aimed to regulate emergency management, particularly with hurricanes, by preventing cities within 100 miles of a storm from implementing burdensome land development and comprehensive plan restrictions and amendments during recovery. The latter included no impact fees or tax increases for new developments like data centers.
Alachua joined a statewide lawsuit in September 2025 challenging the bill.
City Manager Rodolfo Valladares said there hadn’t been any applications or proposals for such a site and that one would require collaboration with the county. Rittenhouse said only two of the site’s parcels belong to the city and the rest stand in unincorporated Alachua County.
Monday’s meeting was supposed to be a joint meeting with the BOCC and include a discussion about the rumored center; however, the county requested the meeting be rescheduled to a new date, which hasn’t been set.
As community members raised concerns about the center during public comment, Mayor Walter Welch discouraged others from speaking because he said he had the right to conduct the meeting how he wanted, and he wanted to move the meeting along.
Commissioner Jacob Fletcher disagreed and encouraged public engagement, although he said the city’s hands are tied for regulating data centers because of SB 180.
Fletcher referenced an email recently sent by BOCC Commissioner Anna Prizzia to the City Commission and other community members who emailed concerns.
In the email, Prizzia affirmed there have been no approvals for data centers and that the county is working on language to restrict and prohibit resource-intensive and extractive facilities in Alachua County.
She said the city of Alachua has jurisdiction over development decisions, since the data center-ready site is in the city.
“Given the regional impact of this type of industry, we will pay close attention to any activity here and hope that Alachua will also be diligent in protecting our resources,” Prizzia said.
Editor’s note: This story was underwritten by a grant from the Rural Reporting Initiative at the Community Foundation of North Central Florida.
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If I’m following along, this is the second City Commission meeting in a row where Mayor Welch is rude to the public. Last time he told the public to “live with it” when there was confusion.
There have been no benefits to residents anywhere data centers have gone to. They consume obscene amounts of drinking water even during droughts, huge strains on electric grids, employ very few people, and often give the data centers huge tax breaks at taxpayers expense. Our area absolutely does not want this here.
Alachua County families are being told they can’t water their lawns more than once a week, can’t pressure wash their homes, can’t use water for basic property upkeep, and could even face HOA battles over dead landscaping all because of a declared water shortage. Citizens are expected to sacrifice, conserve, and watch their property conditions decline.
At the same time, local leaders are entertaining a data center proposal in the City of Alachua that could consume up to 1.5 million gallons of water every single day just to cool computers.
So residents get restrictions, fines, and dying yards while corporate projects get millions of gallons. The message is clear: conservation is mandatory for taxpayers, optional for big development. That’s not environmental responsibility that’s hypocrisy.
That’s NOT True. They recycle their water.
I cannot water my lawn or wash my car but mega money can use millions of gallons?
Yeah, this will go over well.
Stop selling out.
Stop not putting people, the environment and the lands first.
This “Mayor” needs a new job. If you cannot conduct yourself properly, for the people then I don’t want to hear anything from you, especially rude and self serving malarkey.
What is wrong with the Mayor? Why would anyone in their right mind even consider such a terrible idea? Perhaps he should read what happened to these politicians: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/13/missouri-city-council-data-center-00867259. Or listen to this debate: https://youtu.be/xTAJnJUos3g?si=pRbQEYFrsRIeK36I
Say NO to AI data centers!
“he said the city’s hands are tied for regulating data centers because of SB 180.”
Does that mean commissioners haven’t been informed about SB 484 just signed into law to begin July 1? It gives local governments authority to approve or deny data centers within their boundaries and restricts large data centers’ impacts on water supply and energy costs. Unfortunately, it also lets local government officials keep large data center deals secret for 12 months through nondisclosure agreements.
Follow the $$$. AI Data Centers are part of the infrastructure that will power Palantir, and Flock Camera Tracking, and CBDC, and personal Carbon Credits, and Net Zero policy enforcement. Communist Social Credit Scores are in our future if we allow this.
That place has been sitting empty for years. They tried some rehab on it and it still looks like crap when you drive by. Just like the Tara developments it’s going to happen whether you like it or not. So buckle up buttercups.
Okay Road Rage, keep thinking that.
ONE guy says that the Data centers will use a million gallons of water a DAY and no one questions him. That’s complete NONSENSE. Look at the facts on Data centers around the Country They recycle the water. It’s not like Nestle’s bottling plant.