Just a few weeks after hearing opposition to data centers, the City of Marietta will be considering a rezoning case to build one on a site near several neighborhoods in East Cobb.
On Wednesday the Marietta Planning Commission will hear a request to convert a portion of an existing storage facility on Delk Road near Interstate 75 into an 18-megawatt data center.
The meeting takes place Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Marietta City Hall (205 Lawrence Street) and will be preceded by a work session at 5:30 p.m.
The 10.7-acre property on Powers Ferry Place (bordered by the yellow lines in the map above) is zoned Community Retail Commercial, or CRC.
The applicant is asking to keep the same zoning category, but wants to add an existing use that would allow for the construction of a data infrastructure facility.
The applicant’s name is blacked out on the zoning application (you can read it here), but the existing facility there is called Prime Storage.
It’s located at 1150 Powers Place, in an area surrounded mostly by commercial uses. But there are also hotels and apartments nearby, as well as two neighborhoods in unincorporated Cobb—Tuxedo Estates and Sun Valley Estates.
(Those are the streets shaded in brown, just above the light blue-colored areas indicating City of Marietta boundaries.)
The city’s zoning staff didn’t make a recommendation on the data center proposal, but did note in its analysis noise issues, how other local jurisdictions are handling data center requests and acknowledged the fact that Marietta doesn’t have anything about such uses in its ordinance.
“As a result, applications of this type are reviewed under existing commercial categories, which may not fully address the unique characteristics of data center development,” the analysis states.
“This case also highlights a type of use that the City may want to evaluate further as part of future zoning code updates.”
On June 10, dozens of citizens lobbied the Marietta City Council to scuttle any plans to build a data center on land approved for that purpose on Bells Ferry Road a year ago.
The initial request would have allowed up to 100 megawatts of power, but that fell through, and city officials have said the “the most recent discussions have included much smaller power purchase amounts of 60MW or less; however, even those conversations have stalled.”
There are no plans to build there at present, but protests have grown around the country to fight data centers. A number of local governments, including Cobb County, have issued moratoria against considering them.
Prime Storage operates a self-storage facility that would continue, according to the application.
An 18-megawatt data center is being proposed, and that’s considered a mid-size or enterprise facility. In the application, Parks Huff, the attorney for Prime Storage, called the proposed data center “mission critical” and said that the current structure will not be expanded, and that no increases in water consumption or electrical rates to other ratepayers are anticipated.
The data center would take up 21,570 square feet, or 22 percent of the existing building.
“The proposed mission critical data processing facility will provide computing and data needs close to the end users, which is critical for situations where latency is an issue, such as traffic controls or medical facility operations,” Huff wrote in a letter submitted to the city on May 19.
The city’s zoning analysis said that “the applicant has indicated that mechanical equipment would be housed within purpose-built enclosures and utilize a closed-loop air-cooled system; however, no technical specifications or operational details were provided. Since Marietta’s zoning code does not include standards specific to data centers, additional information would be needed to evaluate potential impacts on surrounding properties.”
Under the city’s noise ordinance, there are decibel limits for residential properties.
“Because the project includes a new exterior support area, the placement of equipment, noise control, lighting, and screening will be important considerations, especially with Elme Apartments to the northeast and the Rodeway Inn to the south,” the analysis states.
The zoning staff also noted that the property contains two non-conforming uses, including buffer and sewer easement encroachments and chain-link fencing as well as two legally non-conforming billboards.
The Marietta Planning Commission makes recommendations to the Marietta City Council, which meets July 8.
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