Joel EngelhardtLawsuit seeks to block owner trying to persuade public to support hyperscale AI data center and make way for Atlanta-based owner that could build a data center without public hearings.
The war between the owners of the proposed Project Tango hyperscale AI data center site just went into hyperdrive.
As Stet reported last month, the dueling owners have submitted competing proposals for how best to cash in on the nationwide demand for the lucrative data centers at an industrial site off Southern Boulevard at 20-Mile Bend.
Now, the owner of 60 acres on the 202-acre site, WPB Logistics Owner, has sued the longtime owners of the rest of the land, PBA Holdings.
The company is seeking an emergency injunction to force PBAH to withdraw its master plan application — scheduled to be heard July 15 by the Palm Beach County Commission.
WPB Logistics, backed by Atlanta-based TPA Group, claims the longtime landowner’s pursuit of Project Tango has made WPB “a sacrificial lamb” by assuring that they will face more stringent development controls forced by the public’s negative reaction to Project Tango.
“Rather than diligently pursue the necessary approvals for WPB … PBAH instead focused all of its efforts on entitling its own portion of the property,” wrote Cecilia Quinn, attorney for WPB Logistics.
The result has affected WPB Logistics’ bottom line, the suit says.
“More than three years have elapsed since Phase 1 closed, and in the time since, PBAH has made pursuit of approvals for Project Tango its priority,” wrote Quinn, who works in the law firm started by former Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg.
“PBAH’s prioritization of Project Tango approvals and combining the same with Phase 2 entitlement applications has caused avoidable delays and missed market opportunities for WPB,” she wrote.
Zoning hearing now scheduled for July 2
The company will need the court to act quickly if it wants to stop the public from weighing in: Before the proposal goes to the County Commission, county staff has determined that PBA Holding’s proposal must be heard on July 2 by the Palm Beach County Zoning Commission. That’s the same Zoning Commission that approved an earlier version of the plan on Dec. 4.
But even if the hearings go forward, drawing hundreds of opponents to dispute PBAH’s testimony about noise, power and water consumption and the impact on the neighboring Arden community and the county as a whole, the split between the two high-powered land investors over who would build the data centers and the best way to get them approved shows little sign of relenting.
For the first time, an August 2021 contract calling for WPB to buy not just the 60 acres it has since bought but a 75-acre section for Phase 2 has become public as an exhibit in the complaint filed June 5 in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. The first approvals for industrial development on the property came in 2016.
In 2021, the two sides weren’t arguing over who gets to build data center space. Rather they focused on building warehouses, referred to in the contract as “modern distribution space.”
But the contract and supporting documents came with promises that WPB now says PBAH violated to pursue Project Tango.
The lawsuit distinguishes Project Tango, which is a code word assigned by the Business Development Board to bring a specific, unidentified end-user to land owned by PBA Holdings, from the development envisioned by WPB Logistics. Initially, WPB Logistics sought to build warehouses. Now it wants to build a data center but it is not part of Project Tango.
WPB Logistics withdrew its consent
Six times since January, WPB has asked in writing for PBAH to withdraw its application, the lawsuit said. When it withdrew its consent to PBA Holdings’ approach in April, WPB alleges PBAH misled the county by saying WPB’s consent is not required because it doesn’t own the affected property.
WPB said, as a contract purchaser, its consent is required.
“With defendant ignoring plaintiff’s repeated requests to withdraw the master plan application and site plan application, plaintiffs have been left with no choice but to seek judicial intervention to put an end to defendant’s blatant misconduct,” an accompanying motion seeking an emergency injunction says.
The motion asks the court to force PBAH to withdraw the master plan application that is to be heard July 2 and hold off new applications until they comply with all the agreements between the parties.
Quinn did not return a phone message seeking further comment.
PBAH has not filed its response to the lawsuit yet. Ernie Cox, project manager for PBAH, said he could not comment on the litigation “but is working diligently to obtain the approvals that are spelled out in the contract.”
WPB could switch to data centers without hearing
If PBAH withdraws its revised plan to increase the site’s overall buildable square footage from 2.02 million to 3.4 million, WPB Logistics could move forward without a public hearing over its dueling proposal to convert its already approved 1.2 million square feet of warehouse space into 1.15 million square feet of data center space.
That conversion doesn’t trigger Zoning Commission or County Commission review because it is considered administrative in nature, county staff told WPB Logistics in a May 21 response as part of its pre-application review.
Data center space is already allowed under the site’s zoning designation and, under county zoning regulations, WPB would have to show that reordering the space doesn’t alter or exceed the existing approvals.
County staff would have 120 days from June 16, the date the full application is expected to be submitted, to decide whether WPB Logistics can move forward. While the proposal would not get a public hearing, the political pressure would be enormous, especially if county commissioners choose to weigh in.
The prospect of the public hearing is forcing PBAH to pursue solutions to public concerns, such as promising to install no diesel generators, to move noisy machinery indoors and to use a closed-loop water cooling system.
WPB Logistics has made no such promises.
Additionally, WPB Logistics is in position to own most of the remainder of the site. It holds an option to pay PBAH an estimated $34.4 million for 75 acres in Phase 2, the previously undisclosed contract shows. The contract anticipates Phase 2 could support another 1.14 million square feet of industrial development, changes that PBAH says it is pursuing.
The 25th amendment and why it mattered
The lawsuit makes public a 25th amendment to the contract, which gave PBAH the right to take back some of the land it had agreed to sell to WPB. The move would give PBAH land to build more data center buildings.
Both sides signed the 25th amendment on Nov. 10, but WPB writes in the lawsuit without explanation that PBAH “terminated its rights under the 25th Amendment” on Dec. 11, the day after a crowd showed up to oppose the data center proposal at a County Commission zoning hearing. The commission, acting on a request from the applicant, postponed the hearing, which is now scheduled for July 15.
The 25th amendment would have put PBAH back in control, not WPB Logistics.
It called for PBAH to buy back 33 acres from Phase 2 that it had promised to WPB, reducing WPB’s Phase 2 purchase to $20.9 million for 697,000 square feet of development rights.
But it also gave PBAH the right to buy out WPB’s Phase 2 rights entirely for $129.6 million.
The lawsuit doesn’t explain why WPB signed the 25th amendment and it doesn’t include proof that the 25th amendment had been terminated.
But once terminated, WPB argues, the agreements spelled out in the contract’s 24th amendment prevail, giving WPB control and oversight of applications to the county.
The 24th amendment calls for PBAH to work to obtain development rights for WPB on its 75-acre Phase 2 parcel of an additional 1.14 million square feet. That is part of the master plan update scheduled for the July hearings.
The contract called for WPB to pay to build an entryway into the site, work that has been completed. Both sides are on the board of the Central Park Commerce Center Master Association, which owns the entryway.
But the master association joined WPB Logistics in suing PBAH.
WPB Logistics used the entryway to show how it relied on PBAH to deliver on its promises.
“WPB certainly would not have contributed millions of dollars towards infrastructure improvements to serve Phase 2 and the rest of the property if none of the master plan’s approved density was left over for Phase 2,” WPB says in its motion for an emergency injunction.
What is WPB Logistics Owner?
It’s a Florida corporation formed in January 2025 with four officers, all employees of TPA Group of Atlanta, including TPA President J. Bradford Smith and TPA Director Matt Prince. It took over the interests of FL Development Acquisition LLC, which formed in 2021 and signed the contract to buy in phases most of the 202-acre site now proposed for Project Tango.
WPB Logistics paid PBAH $36 million for 60 acres in February 2023 and held an option to buy an additional 75 acres for $34.4 million. It initially sought to build warehouses. It also holds the first right to 34 acres, a so-called right of first refusal, if PBAH wanted to sell it to another warehouse developer.
It also spent millions to build the recently completed entryway into the project area along Southern Boulevard on about 15 acres. It has two of the three seats on the Central Park Commerce Center Master Association, which owns the entryway land.
In all, it could control about 184 acres of the 202-acre site.
WPB Logistics Owner and the Central Park Master Association filed the lawsuit June 5 against PBA Holdings.
What is PBA Holdings?
It’s a successor organization to GKK Corp., which paid $13 million for 3,000 acres north of Southern Boulevard at 20-Mile Bend in 1993. The company made millions mining rock as Palm Beach Aggregates and sold off a set of the nearly leak-proof mining pits for more than $200 million to the South Florida Water Management District in 2001.
In 2002, Florida Light & Power received zoning approval to build the West County Energy Center on 200 acres at the site. Property records show FPL paid Palm Beach Aggregates at least $39.5 million for portions of the property.
In 2014, PBA Holdings sold off an eastern section for $77 million to make way for the 2,300-home Arden community. Saddle View Elementary School opened there in August.
PBAH’s owners include Michael Klein, son of the late GKK Founder Sam Klein; Enrique Tomeu, who first invested in the rock mining company in 1997; executives with the Phillips Cos., a construction conglomerate out of Knoxville, Tenn.; and an attorney who represents the principals of Ogden CAP Properties LLC and the Seymour Milstein Family.
Their project manager, Ernie Cox, has worked for PBAH since about 2009, including its efforts to convert rock pits into water storage, the Arden land sale and the zoning of the industrial site that would become Project Tango, starting in 2016.
What is Project Tango?
It’s the code name given to a project to draw a large, unidentified tech company, such as Google, Oracle, Microsoft or Apple, to a data center at PBA Holdings’ property at 20-Mile Bend. It first came to public attention in December when the Palm Beach County Zoning Board voted in favor of a request to allow 1.8 million square feet of data center use at the site.
What is TPA Group?
WPB Logistics Owner’s board is made up entirely of executives from Atlanta-based builder TPA Group. It’s a privately owned development company led by J. Bradford Smith, that builds housing, office parks and warehouses, and recently began moving into data centers.
TPA Group recently announced it is teaming with Houston Rockets basketball star Kevin Durant to redevelop a 515-acre former Six Flags America site in Maryland’s Prince George’s County.
In papers filed last year with the county, it lists Hartford Life and Accident Insurance and related companies as an 80% owner of its interests in the property and TPA-related companies as owners of 20%.
