Overview:
• A 200-megawatt data center has been proposed for Custer Avenue near the PWC’s power plant and the town of Eastover.
• A data center firm has said it wants to build a $6.4 billion, 300 mega-watt data center on Dunn Road in Fayetteville.
• The Q&A about data centers will be at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at 201 Hay St.
At least two new data centers have been proposed to be built on the east side of Fayetteville across the Cape Fear River, although there are doubts about one of them.
And as the world’s insatiable maw for data centers grows to power artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency mines, and other computing needs, the Fayetteville Cumberland County Economic Development Corporation (FCEDC) is holding a seminar Thursday for the public to ask questions and learn more about them.
The information session is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m in suite 401A of the Robert C. Williams Business Center at 201 Hay St., in downtown Fayetteville. Admission is free, but registration is required to guarantee a seat.
“There’s a lot of information. There’s a lot of things that are going to be viewed as positives, a lot of concerns out there,” said Robert Van Geons, the FCEDC’s president and CEO.. The seminar’s goal is to answer questions and hold an open conversation.
“And the hope is that it’ll help leadership decide how to deal with the different types of technology projects that we’re likely to be seeing in the months and years ahead,” he added.
Data centers power 21st century communications and computing technology, and can mean high-dollar property values that could make elected officials salivate for their potential revenue. But data centers have drawn criticism for their electric consumption, the amount of water they use for cooling as communities fight over drinking water access, and the noise of their equipment.
New Data Centers Proposed for Fayetteville
Proposals for two large data centers in Fayetteville have been made public.
Terra Nexus Ventures, a private equity real estate company in Charlotte, submitted plans to the city to build a 200-megawatt data center on 180 acres on Custer Avenue near the Fayetteville Public Works Commission electrical generation plant and Eastover. Efforts to contact Terra Nexus were unsuccessful on Tuesday.
Energy Storage Solutions LLC of Rocky Mount has floated a plan to build a 300-megawatt data center on 50 acres on Dunn Road on the eastern edge of Fayetteville. A brochure says it would be worth $6.4 billion. This idea has generated some opposition in Fayetteville, including a Change.org petition that had 869 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.
Energy Storage President Daniel Shaffer could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Van Geons told CityView the Energy Storage Solutions proposal is far from certain.
“That has never been—that’s an important thing there—that has never been a project that was actually under contract,” he said. “That was something that caught both the property owner and us off guard when that went public there, when he put that out there.”
Data centers are nothing new, Van Geons said, citing Fayetteville-based Advanced Internet Technologies as an example. Founded in the 1990s, AIT has operated a data center in its headquarters on Hay Street and Maiden Lane.
In 2022, cryptocurrency mining company Plan C Crypto opened a data center in an industrial warehouse on Dedication Drive off Black & Decker Road near the Fayetteville Regional Airport and Freedom Christian Academy.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
Did you find this story useful or interesting? It was made possible by donations from readers like you to the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization committed to an informed democracy in Fayetteville and Cumberland County.
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation so CityView can bring you more news and information like this.
