A 1.8-million square-foot data center may be coming to an area near the Arden community in Palm Beach County's western suburbs.
The proposal, called Project Tango, is causing angst for Loxahatchee-area residents who have questions and concerns about industrial noise, diesel emissions, traffic and environmental issues.
“Would any of you want this next to where you live?” asked Jim Riley, an Arden homeowner, during a recent zoning hearing. He and others said they bought in Arden to take advantage of the area's rural character, and that this project would destroy it.
The Zoning Commission voted 8-2 to recommend that the county commission allow the project to move forward. The next step is Dec. 10 when commissioners are scheduled to consider a request to reduce the parking spaces required for the project and to update a previously approved master plan.
The Atlanta-based property owner, WPB Logistics LLC, is collaborating with affiliates of The Hartford insurance companies to develop what would be the first data center in an unincorporated area of the county. There are two data centers currently in West Palm Beach that are smaller in scope and size.
Arden is a master-planned development expected to include more than 2,000 homes across 1,210 acres. Much of it is already built. More than a dozen residents testified at a Zoning Commission hearing last week against the data center. They are likely to testify again against the project on Dec. 10.
The data center would be part of the Central Park Commerce Center, along the north side of Southern Boulevard 4 miles west of Seminole Pratt Whitney Road. The project would also include 1.9 million square feet of warehouses and would be adjacent to a Florida Power & Light Co. energy plant. The applicant said it already has an agreement with FPL to provide electrical power.
This data center would be an AI hyperscale one, a large facility designed to support Artificial Intelligence workloads. To support the growth in AI, companies need powerful data centers that can handle substantial amounts of data and computing tasks.
This is where AI hyperscale data centers come in. They use thousands of servers and specialized hardware to process huge amounts of data and rely on advanced cooling systems to keep the servers running,
They are different from traditional data centers because they are specifically built to handle AI tasks, which require much more computing power and faster data-processing capabilities.
Can the data center builder keep the noise to an acceptable level?
The biggest concern for Arden residents is noise. They are worried the thousands of servers in the data center could produce levels unacceptable to their community and the nearby Saddle Brook Elementary School.
“This is too close to a residential development,” Franklin Trujillo said at the Zoning Commission hearing.
County planners acknowledged that issues would need to be addressed before the project could be built. Their report concluded that the data center operation would require substantial power consumption and large amounts of water for server cooling.
But their report supported the applicant’s requests. The staff said the noise issue and cooling processes will be considered when the applicant submits a site plan. The proposed data center will also need emergency backup power in the event of a power failure. Natural gas service lines will be used.
Katie Tantillo, who identified herself as a Loxahatchee resident, said the elementary school is only 1,000 feet from the proposed data center. She said the cooling towers and chillers will operate at 85–100 decibel levels, a level she said far exceeds what is appropriate near a school.
Data centers also rely on large diesel backup generators, which emit compounds known to harm children’s respiratory health, she said.
Ernie Cox of PBA Holdings, the applicant, acknowledged some data centers generate significant noise.
“This is an important issue for us,” he said. “Before anything is built, we will do a detailed noise analysis study. We don’t want to have an impact on Arden.” He called the site, though, 20 miles inland and 23 feet above sea level, ideal for a data center.
Cox said the data center buildings will be positioned away from the school and Arden to reduce negative impacts.
The county has already approved the site for warehouses and a data center, but one about one-eighth the size of the current plan. Consequently, the applicant needs the county to approve a master plan change and to permit a reduction in parking spaces, as few employees will work inside the data center.
The proposal envisions one parking space per 2,000 square feet. Without the variance, Cox explained that the project would require parking for every 250 square feet, which would force the applicant to build garages that would remain mostly unused.
County Commissioner Maria Sachs said she has received hundreds of emails from county residents upset with the plan for a data center.
“I can’t say how I am going to vote,” Sachs said, “but there are concerns here that need to be addressed. Is this a good location for something like this? Is it too close to Arden and the school? Those are questions I want to see answered. We need data centers, but we cannot have them at the expense of our environment and our residents.”
Mike Diamond is a journalist at, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. He covers Palm Beach County government. You can reach him at . Help support local journalism.
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