SOCIAL CIRCLE, Ga. — The Social Circle Planning Commission is narrowly recommending that the Social Circle City Council approve a rezoning request that could bring a 2.5-million square-foot data center, comprising nine buildings, to 338 acres of a 453-acre tract along Interstate 20 between Georgia Highway 11 and Social Circle Road.

With a 3-2 Tuesday vote, the planning commission recommended that the council approve the rezoning sought by SC Infrastructure LLC, an Atlanta-based company, which wants the acreage rezoned from its current agricultural classification to a light industrial classification.

Also involved in the project is Atlanta-based TPA Group, a real estate investment and development firm. The tract is owned by Cumming Investments Inc., a Duluth-based enterprise.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Bradley Kaaber of TPA Group told the planning commission that if the rezoning and special-use permit are granted, the current plan for the tract is for a five-year build-out commencing in 2028, with all planned construction completed by 2033. 

Voting in favor of the recommendation were Adolphus Gaither, John Gardner and Glenda Brown, with Signora Jackson and Planning Commission Chairman Scott Gaither voting against the recommendation for approval of the rezoning request. Planning Commissioners Travis Parr and Curtis Mullins were not in attendance for Tuesday’s meeting.

In related action Tuesday, the planning commission voted 4-1 to table, until its May 27 meeting, consideration of a special-use permit request to allow the operation of a data center on the tract. 

The delay was recommended in order to hear more from those involved in the project regarding projected water use (data centers routinely use water to cool massive banks of digital equipment), alternatives to water-based cooling, where the significant amount of needed electrical power will come from, how the planned structures can be set farther back from I-20 and other roads and how the tract’s I-20 frontage can be made more aesthetically pleasing.

The lone vote against tabling consideration of the special-use permit came from Gardner.  

The city council, which is not bound by any recommendations made by the planning commission, will get an initial look at the rezoning request and the special-use permit request at its non-voting May 1 meeting, and could vote on both requests at its May 20 meeting. Both meetings are set for 6:30 p.m. in the Community Room at 138 E. Hightower Trail, and both will include opportunities for public comment.

In recent years, data centers — massive facilities that house computing hardware for the purpose of storing, processing, disseminating and securing huge quantities of digital data – have proliferated in Georgia.

Meta (formerly Facebook) operates a data center near Social Circle in the Stanton Springs development off I-20, and in January, the Social Circle City Council approved an annexation, rezoning and special-use permit sought by Florida-based Sailfish Investors to establish a 1.8-million square foot data center in four buildings to be located at Amber Stapp Studdard Road and Social Circle Parkway.

The Florida company has reportedly talked with a number of “hyperscalers” – large data companies such as Google, Open AI, Microsoft or Amazon Web Services – about occupying the planned data center, but there has been no announcement of any tenants for the center, or any potential purchasers.

Conflicting jurisdiction: Social Circle or Newton County?

Complicating the rezoning and special-use permit request for the proposed data center has been the question of whether the tract targeted for the project is actually in Social Circle or is in neighboring Newton County.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Social Circle counsel Jay Crowley referenced what he called the “storied history” of the annexation and de-annexation of the property beginning nearly two decades ago. And while Newton County officials have recently raised questions about the status of the subject property, no lawsuit or other legal action has yet been filed to formally place any issues in front of a judge, Crowley said.

Crowley, contending that a 2008 annexation of the property into Social Circle was conducted properly, advised the planning commission Tuesday to proceed with its consideration of the rezoning and special-use permit requests, until or unless a judge issues an order halting those proceedings so that any questions about whether the land is in Social Circle or Newton County can be addressed.

Any court order halting proceedings on the rezoning and special-use permit requests, if it comes before the upcoming city council meetings, would bar the council from taking any action. 

Nonetheless, the issue remained problematic for some planning commissioners, with Scott Gaither noting that although he was confident in Crowley, “I've got a lot of heartburn about this,” and adding that the situation has “still got that clouded mystery around it.”

In addition to hearing from Kaaber and from Julie Sellers, counsel for SC Infrastructure LLC, on the attributes of the proposed data center project, the planning commission on Tuesday also heard the concerns of a number of area residents — the majority from outside Social Circle — about the proposal.

One concern was what would happen with the data center as digital technology advances to the point that such facilities aren’t needed.

“Then what happens with all of these buildings?” asked one man. “What happens when they are no longer viable?”

Another speaker suggested the city would destroy its small-town feel, symbolized by a replica of an old-time well on Social Circle’s main thoroughfare, as it pursued industrial development like the proposed data center.

“That little well out there — you’re going to have to put a smokestack on top of it,” the man suggested.