The Marietta City Council on Wednesday approved a controversial proposal to build a data center in a current storage facility off Delk Road that faces Interstate 75.
In a rezoning case that was tabled last month, the council voted 5-2 to approve Prime Storage’s request to use a portion of its 90,000-square-foot building for an 18-megawatt data facility for what it calls “mission critical” local purposes.
That includes law enforcement, medical and emergency services and local businesses in the area. At last month’s meeting, Marietta also voted for a six-month moratorium on considering other data centers, as Cobb and other jurisdictions have been doing.
But it didn’t include the Prime Storage request. After more than two hours of occasionally heated public comment and discussion on Wednesday, the council agreed to a motion from Ward 7 member Joseph Goldstein that included a number of stipulations.
Those include constant monitoring of the data center site, an independent sound study to gauge noise levels, observing existing city noise limits, silencing of coolers and generators and for Prime Storage to agree not to build another data center at its other Marietta facilities.
Ward 7 includes the East Marietta area where the Prime Storage facility is located, on Powers Ferry Place, near several hotels and apartment buildings in city limits and subdivisions in unincorporated East Cobb.
“Vote them out! Vote them out!” chanted some of the opponents of the data center, who for the last two months have galvanized public attention and crowded City Hall meeting chambers.
Before Wednesday’s meeting, opponents sent out multiple press releases warning against “toxic data centers” that benefit only tech billionaires while using public water ane electricity and causing pollution issues.
Much of the opposition comes from local branches of the Democratic Socialists of America, and local Democratic Party groups and candidates also have been opposed.
State Rep. Mary Frances Williams, a Democrat from Marietta who held a data center town hall recently, said that “I continue to have concerns” about the Prime Storage proposal “that in my opinion have not been answered.”
At one point, an opponent shouted out about what was on four fully redacted pages in the Prime Storage agenda item (see pages 29-33), but his question was ignored.
Supporters of the data center turned out in strong numbers, including an engineer from East Cobb-based J & A Engineering, which does low-voltage consulting work, as well as the Cobb Chamber of Commerce.
Dana Johnson of Select Cobb, the Chamber’s economic development arm, said that “this is no different than any other type of infrastructure that you control.”
Then the meeting went from raw emotion to highly technical talk about emergency generators, cooling systems and noise decibel levels.
Council member Cheryl Richardson (Ward 1, near Dobbins) asked a series of questions about those, saying that “I have a lot of problems with the sound study” that was done, particularly since it didn’t explain a situation in which multiple backup generators would be running.
Parks Huff, the attorney for Prime Storage, said that’s happened only twice in the last couple years at an adjacent data center, for only a few hours.
He also said his client would agree to a stipulation that the data center would not be connected to Marietta’s municipal water and electricity systems.
Prime Storage CEO Robert Moser said he was prompted to build a data center because of a medical emergency involving his mother and learning about the lack of real-time responses that such facilities provide.
He said what’s being planned in Marietta isn’t an artificial-intelligence data center that’s prompted opposition around the country, with additional concerns over potential job losses.
“This is the future,” Moser said, adding that “this will benefit local businesses and citizens. This is the most community-friendly [type of data center] there is.”
Some heckling ensued, but Moser continued, estimating that his data center could attract nearly 50 companies and create 1,500 new jobs over the next decade.
“Companies will come here just to be near this technology,” he said.
After Goldstein’s lengthy motion, Richardson and Ward 3 (West Marietta) council member Daniel Gaddis voted against the rezoning, as howling and chanting ensued.
On Thursday, Shelia Edwards of Cobb County, a Democrat running for the Georgia Public Service Commission, issued a statement opposed to the Marietta data center.
“I will always stand with communities that don’t want these facilities,” Edwards said. “I just struggle to believe that the Council had zero tools to push this back a little longer and ensure due diligence for the people of Marietta.”
The Marietta moratorium on data centers expires on Dec. 31.
Related stories:
- Eastside Church senior-living request held again
- Marietta OKs fitness center for ex-Kroger site on Powers Ferry
- Marietta tables data center request; issues moratorium
- Fitness center proposed for Powers Ferry ex-Kroger site
- Subdivision request off Old Canton Road continued again
- Eastside Church senior-living plans delayed to August
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