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.  

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, as 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.