The Mayor of the Municipality of Arcene, in Bergamo, northern Italy, has expressed dismay at the lack of progress of a major data center project developed by the Vitali Group.

Corriere della Sera reported that Mayor Roberto Ravanelli “is bitter, if not disappointed,” after years of work to make the ‘Innovation Hub’ happen haven’t yet yielded any results.

“The Municipality of Arcene has taken great pains to find a way to build a data center in the town,” Ravanelli told the Italian newspaper. “If they truly believe in it, now it's up to the Vitalis, the project's developers.”

The plans for the 181,000 sqm (1.95 million sq ft) Innovation Hub were first announced at the end of 2022. The project involved the expansion of the former Tre Cantoni quarry, now agricultural land, owned by the Italian developer Vitali Group.

Construction was expected to start in 2024. However, the project is currently stalled, and local officials are waiting for action from Vitali.

The group’s management has been under investigation following claims of fraudulent bankruptcy of one of its companies.

The Innovation Hub campus was expected to create €4 million ($4.6 million) in public works to regenerate the area. The municipality was already in talks with two neighboring towns to provide 50,000 sqm (538,000 sq ft) of land to compensate for a park that would be lost to give way to the data center.

The Italian government has granted certain types of infrastructure, such as data centers ‘strategic intervention’ status, which are intended to accelerate permits and justify special land use exceptions.

Ravanelli wrote to officials in February requesting clarification on the most appropriate urban planning tool for proceeding with the permit process, and whether the data center could be justified by the strategic intervention recognition.

He said that the response received was “very bureaucratic” and that the end user of the data center must be disclosed. However, the Vitali Group said the end buyer has no intention of taking any action until the facility is under construction.

"Until the beginning of February, the Vitalis would call me every other day,” Ravanelli said. “Now they're gone, while the Bergamo area is seeing a proliferation of new data center projects. It would be ironic if we, who were the first to start, didn't reach our destination."

There are approximately 150 data centers in Italy, with the highest concentration in the Northern region and Rome. The country’s data center market is projected to grow from approximately €7.5 billion ($8.64bn) in 2025 to €13.5 billion ($15.56bn) by 2030.

Its IT capacity is expected to expand from 1.08GW in 2025 to over 4GW by 2030, marking one of the highest growth rates in Europe.

DCD approached the Municipality of Arcene and the Vitali Group for comment.

Learn more about the data center market in Italy and Southern Europe, and meet with other executives and experts from the region at the DCN Milan event later this year