A land parcel around Tucson, Arizona, has been rezoned and sold to develop the ‘Project Blue’ data center.

On June 18, the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 in favor of rezoning the 290-acre land parcel from ‘rural homestead’ to ‘light industrial’. The parcel will then be sold to San Francisco-based Beale Infrastructure, a data center developer backed by alternative investment asset company Blue Owl.

The rezoning was approved amidst concerns about the facility's impact on the local power grid and water supply.

The parcel, owned by Pima County, is currently vacant and is otherwise known as the Southeast Employment and Logistics Center. It is located immediately north of the Pima County Fairgrounds in Pima County, which contains the city of Tucson.

Beale will acquire the land for approximately $20 million. The contract will include economic development performance measures for employment and the average wage levels of the facilities’ workers, projected to be between $75,000 and $85,000.

It is estimated that 75 and 150 full-time employees will be hired to work on the project.

$3.6 billion in total capital investment has been earmarked over the multi-year construction period, which will take place in three phases and is expected to start within two years of the sale.

The facility will be powered by Tucson Electric Power. It also intends to utilize fully renewable water resources – primarily reclaimed water – and has made a commitment to replenish all consumptive losses.

Beale Infrastructure also has a presence in Kansas City and Tulsa. Its backer, Blue Owl, recently closed its newest digital infrastructure fund, Blue Owl Digital Infrastructure Fund III (ODI III), with $7bn of total capital commitments. The company has approximately $192bn in assets under management and owns Stack Infrastructure.

While most data centers in Arizona are located around Phoenix, the area around Tucson is an emerging market. Operators present in the area include Ark Data Centers, TECfusions, Lumen, and FirstDigital.