A 500-acre data center campus could be built near Phoenix, Arizona.

The Planning and Zoning Commission of Pinal County voted on October 16 to recommend for approval an amendment to redesignate an approximately 500-acre land parcel northeast of Maricopa Road and Teel Road from ‘Moderate Low Density Resident’ to ‘Employment’ and ‘General Public Facilities/Services’ for “an energy generation and technology campus.”

The final decision on the rezoning application still needs approval from the County’s Board of Supervisors, which will consider it on November 19.

The applicant, W Holdings, is an Arizona-based farming, land management, and development company. The land parcel is currently owned by Arizona RR Ranches LLC.

Little is known about the identity of the end user, what kind of energy generation will be required, and the capacity of the data center.

There has been some opposition to the proposed facility, with the county’s Citizen Advisory Committee previously recommending denial of the proposal. Local residents have also expressed concerns about a potential data center’s impact on the environment, as well as its energy and water usage.

Pinal County has seen a recent influx of data center projects. In September, Ryan Companies and EdgeCore submitted proposals to rezone land in the town of Florence, and in August, the County held an information session for a rezoning application submitted by land developer Vermaland earlier in April.

Arizona’s data center market is clustered around Phoenix and Tucson. The former is home to hyperscalers, including Meta, Google, as well as others like NTT, Stack, Stream, Prime, Aligned, Iron Mountain, Vantage, Compass, QTS, EdgeConneX, Expedient, Centersquare, and H5. Microsoft operates a cloud region outside the area.