At a recent meeting Marana’s Planning and Zoning Commission voted to recommend approval of a rezoning application to town council for Beale Infrastructure’s data center project. It now goes on to the council for final review. Beale develops data centers and infrastructure solutions for tech companies.
Council chambers where the meeting was held was packed to overflowing for the 3-hour-plus meeting on whether the commission should recommend to town council to approve the rezoning of about 600 acres on Luckett Road for the building of a data center. The meeting took place on Dec. 10. 
Currently the land is zoned R-144, meaning agriculture, and half, about 300 acres, is owned by the Church of Latter-day Saints. The owners are represented by Lazarus and Silvyn, a Tucson land use law firm. To the south is another plot of about 300 acres which is also being considered for rezoning for the same project. That property is owned by the Kai Family Tr 97 & Kai Family Tr 97 S12 LLC.
Jason Angell, Marana’s development services director, gave a bit of background about the property and what the applicant needs to document to be approved according to an ordinance passed last year by the town council. That includes:

  • A baseline noise study and noise contour exhibit.
  • The intended source of electrical power and affirming that there is sufficient power to provide services to this proposed development, an assessment of future energy needs, an estimate of annual water consumption, intended source of water for the development and documentation from the water provider affirming sufficient water resources exist. 
  • If the applicant is not able to comply with any part of the ordinance, they are specifically required to call out that section and explain or justify why they are not able to comply.

Angell said that is not the case at this time. Trico will supply the electricity and Marana Water will provide water for office operations only, not to be used for cooling purposes.
“The proposal is for this facility to be an air cooled facility, so it is not a water cooled facility,” Angell said. “The Cortaro-Marana Irrigation District (CMID) will also provide irrigation, industrial, and fire suppression water for those services there. This is in the Marana Wastewater service area.”
Should town council approve the plan, other changes would come to Marana. 
“As part of this application, there is a roadway extension that is proposed for the extension of Luckett Road, going north to Pinal Airpark Road,” Angell said. 
Because Luckett Road dead ends just outside the entrance to the veterans cemetery, as part of the proposal there would be an extension of potable water that would serve the site, about a 3-mile run that the developers would have to extend services to. 
“Once again, the potable water is only for the office operations for this proposed development,” Angell said.
A regional drainage channel about five miles long would also have to be designed and built as part of the application. 
It would “run up along interstate 10, come across just to north of the veterans cemetery or south of the veteran cemetery south of the property and it runs all the way throughout to where it daylights into the Santa Cruz river,” Angell said. 
The developers will do the full design.
Following Angell, Keri Silvan, a partner in the firm representing the owners, gave an overview of what is being proposed. She began by giving an overview of Beale Infrastructure.
“Beale partners with the world’s leading technology companies to develop data centers and infrastructure that support national economic growth,” she said. “it’s a well capitalized company with a project team of industry veterans with deep experience in delivering infrastructure projects. Beale works closely with communities and has been with the town of Marana to understand the local resource constraints and develop a responsible and sustainable roadmap for future growth. …  the priority is our commitments to sustainability, community, investment, and health and safety.”
Silvan went on to say that a data center is the “physical backbone of the internet. It drives our modern economy and has become essential to our daily lives. … The buildings themselves actually house the servers to make all of this work, and we need to really be creating this infrastructure in the United States and not on relying on foreign markets.”
Why Marana? Three reasons, Silvan said.

  • Strategic location free from most natural disasters
  • A strong construction workforce
  • Plenty of power availability
    Silvan said the benefits to Marana are great, including:
  • Signifiant tax revenue
  • Well-paying local jobs
  • Minimal traffic impact
  • Improved local infrastructure
  • Increased local connectivity

Residents have their say
However, not all Marana residents are pleased with the plan to build the data center. They were at the meeting to voice their concerns.
First up was Sue Ritz, a registered professional engineer in the state of Arizona in mining and mineral processing. She has 24 years of service with the National Guard and she had questions. Specifically:

  • “What impact does the proposed data center have on the residential rate customers? We already know commercial rate customers pay three cents less a kilowatt than residentials do. 
  • “If there’s not enough power, who’s going to lose their power first? Is it going to be Beale and their data center, or is it going to be us? Does your backup power consist of a diesel or liquified natural gas generator? Onsite power generation is exempt from the Clean Air Act. 
  • “How much of this power is going to be needed for things like, I don’t know, starting up, testing, how many hours? and again, this is exempt from the clean air act. 
  • “Will the generators require on-site fuel usage? If there’s a spill, an accident or a catastrophic event will Beale bond the town from any catastrophic events that may occur? How much are you going to put up to assure that a polluted site is not going to be on the town for cleanup? Remember PFAs (forever chemicals)? Nobody knew what they didn’t know, but now the town is on the hook for millions of dollars in cleanup from PFAs. What is this data center going to do? What do we not know about this data center and the pollution it might bring to our town? This is a speculative project.”

Ritz also pointed out that Beale currently has no customers for this data center, and multiple financial agencies believe that this is a bubble. She was also concerned about ICE.
“Given the convenience of the proposed MTC prison located nearby, will ICE raid the construction site when their quotas are down?” she asked. “I’m not against progress but I want to see written guarantees before this rezoning goes through and it doesn’t seem like there’s much here for the town of Marana but there’s a lot here for billionaires and tech bros.”

AI bubble
Another concern was raised by Jackie McGuire, an AI data center and cybersecurity expert and research analyst. He said this is not a financially sustainable project.
“One thing I find curious that Beale hasn’t mentioned is that they’re a subsidiary of a company called Blue Owl Capitol,” he said. “They are a publicly traded OWL. Blue Owl is currently involved in a class action lawsuit for securities fraud for making material misstatements about their liquidity and the status of their financials.”
He then mentioned the AI bubble.
“We’re talking about two potentially 750 megawatt data centers,” he said. “The cost to construct and then put the components in those data centers will be approximately $120 billion. This is being funded primarily with private equity and debt that’s being hidden from public company balance sheets from companies like Meta, Amazon, Google and Open AI. The result of this is that these things do not show up as debt on those public companies’ balance sheets. They show up as equity assets. We have no way of really knowing how much debt exists.”
Also, “If you spend $120 billion to construct and then put components in a data center, just servicing the interest on that loan is $1.2 billion per year,” McGuire said. “One-and-a-half gigawatts of power will not produce enough compute to be able to produce enough revenue to service $1.2 billion of interest on those loans per year. The chips that go into these data centers last approximately 18-24 months, although they’re depreciated over five years. … as soon as you’re done installing all of those racks, you go back to the beginning and you begin upgrading those racks, creating billions of dollars worth of e-waste that this community will have to figure out how to service and that’s on top of the interest alone for the loans to build these data centers. This is a financially unsustainable project. 

Pro comments 
Not everyone present was in opposition to the data center.
Susan Dumont thanked the town for its foresight.
“I did want to go on record to say that we’re in favor of this project,” she said. “I  commend the town for creating the data center ordinance because you’ve gotten ahead and you’ve been very thoughtful about how to make sure you can have constructive development while protecting your residents. Thank you.”
Marana resident Joe Westerman, a business owner and former member of the Marana Chamber of Commerce board of directors, is in favor of the data center. 
“The town of Marana has shown foresight by proactively recognizing the importance and economic benefits of this industry and has established a strong data center ordinance designed specifically to protect our residents and existing businesses,” he said. “Based on my understanding of Beale Infrastructure’s proposal, the company has engaged thoughtfully with our community and has committed to environmentally responsible and sustainable development that aligns with Marana’s long term vision. 
“So for these reasons, and based on factual information, Marana’s protective ordinance and the immense economic benefit, I urge the planning commission to support this rezoning request.”
Other concerns were raised, namely air pollution caused by the data center, that the center will not employ anywhere near what Silvan said and that residents’ utility bills will go up significantly.
The last speaker was John Flint, a member of the Planning and Zoning Commission, who talked about balance.
“We have to have a variety of housing styles,” he said. “We have to have a variety of industrial, we have to have a variety of commercial to make us a vibrant community. When you have that, you have a balance in revenue and expenses. 
“If we were just a residential community with no industrial, no commercial, no others, it would be very expensive to live here because there would be 100% demand on services. 
“We need those other land uses and those other zonings to be in the city that don’t have as great a demand as residential to help the residential communities, have the parks and the libraries, and all of the services that go with them both in police and fire. 
“…I think in this particular case, we’re very fortunate that this use, as some may feel it might be obnoxious, and others are grateful for it. It’s out in a remote area of the town of Marana. It’s not adjacent to anybody’s home. It’s not going to have light glaring in on anybody’s back yard, as we’ve had some other concerns in other matters that came before this board. 
“It’s to have a balance in the community so that we can all afford to live here, and have the things that we want in a community, that the past town councils and the current town council have afforded us. Simple as that.”
It is expected that the data center will open in 2029.
In the end the Planning and Zoning Commission voted to approve the recommendation by unanimous vote.