By John Dobberstein, Editor
A proposed data center for Broken Arrow could have an electrical load of 100 to 150 megawatts, but the cooling system, electrical needs and compatibility with the city’s zoning laws is still an open question, city officials said Thursday.
Broken Arrow City Manager Michael Spurgeon told the Sentinel the owner of the property where the data center would be located is Rex Robertson, who has a letter of intent to sell the property to an unidentified company if the project gets the necessary zoning approvals.
The company behind the development, with hasn’t been identified, may request a pre-development meeting with city planners in the next couple of months.
The 51-acre property at 8521 S. 209th East Ave. sits across the highway from the 90-acre Creek 51 Industrial Park, which is on land Robertson owns. Spurgeon said Robertson secured a TIF agreement with the city in 2019 to help pay for the cost of developing the industrial park.
“He’s contacted us on several occasions about possible retail or commercial-type development on the frontage of that property that is the subject of this potential data center,” Spurgeon said. “We’ve worked with him on several occasions.”
Robertson was president of Dallas-based Ford Development when the industrial park was developed, after the city and Wagoner County officials broke ground on the development.
It’s unclear if a proposed data center would have to go through any approvals with Wagoner County, Spurgeon said.
The city’s research showed the targeted property was brought into Wagoner County in the early 1980s and zoned as light industrial. It was later brought back into the city, and the zoning was changed back to agricultural in 1998.
“If they decide to go forward after the pre-development meeting then they must go through all the appropriate approval processes with the planning commission and ultimately the governing body,” Spurgeon said.
Spurgeon reiterated Thursday that neither he, city staff or the City Council will be signing any non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with the developer about the project.
The use of NDAs for other data center proposals across Oklahoma — including recently in Coweta with Project Atlas — has rankled residents, who felt all the decisions about a major project were already made by the time they heard about it. The Coweta project was ultimately pulled by Beale Infrastructure.
Spurgeon said he doesn’t believe NDAs are necessary in this case. “I want to be open and transparent about this,” Spurgeon said. “All that’s going to do is create more concerns amongst our citizens and speculation that it’s something we’re not being transparent about.
“I’ve only spoken to the council members individually and they’ve all expressed concern about it. My recommendation to them has been, ‘I don’t believe that’s necessary.’ The governing body is the one that makes the decisions and we need to be fully transparent with everything we do here.”
Spurgeon said he was told by PSO the proposal must be studied by the utility to determine if the data center’s load requirements could be serviced, and what effect that could have on PSO’s usage and the city’s electrical grid.
If a data center was built at the 209th Street location, the water availability could come from Wagoner County Rural Water District #4. But Spurgeon said there are issues to explore there as well, as RWD #4 doesn’t offer fire protection for businesses and the district must buy water from Broken Arrow during the summer when it’s hot.
Spurgeon emphasized the city was alerted about the interest from the Broken Arrow Economic Development Corp., but the city did not recruit the data center and it’s not physically the city’s project or the city’s land, he said.
Although some residents have suggested the city flatly reject the development and not even meet with the developer, Spurgeon said they cannot do that.
“They have the right to fill out an application and to proceed through the development process. If we were to just tell somebody just no, because the city doesn’t have a position or we don’t have enough information to even to know what our position would be, the city could be liable for violating their rights because that would be inconsistent with our city codes,” he said.
“This apparently is a company that we don’t know that believes Broken Arrow would be a good investment for their business, just like any other business that’s developed here. And they may choose to go forward after the pre-developed meeting, and they may not.”
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