Joel EngelhardtProject Tango AI data center not dead yet, despite heated hearing in which four participants were thrown out.
For Palm Beach County residents opposed to an AI data center at the Project Tango site off of Southern Boulevard, the key moment during Wednesday’s marathon County Commission meeting may have arrived immediately after commissioners voted 5-1 to deny the project.
That’s when commissioners got staff to acknowledge that the points commissioners made during their review of expert witnesses and resident objections would carry over into staff reviews of two competing proposals that could still result in a 2 million-square-foot data center on the property.
Those staff reviews would happen behind closed doors with no public testimony, unlike the lengthy hearings that led to the Wednesday’s denial.
They could result in more hyperscale AI data center space than commissioners rejected in the heated 11-hour hearing, in which four members of the public got thrown out, one for ignoring repeated warnings against applauding.
A lot is at stake, given that the developers put a $34.5 billion value on their plans for 1 million square feet of data center space, 2.3 million square feet of warehouse space and 216,000 square feet of supporting uses, resulting in what undoubtedly would be the most valuable property in Palm Beach County.
As commissioners said in the moments after the vote, they have no say-so in the administrative review of competing proposals from landowners PBA Holdings and WPB Logistics Owner that have been underway for months. But the commission’s clear determination that a data center at that site is not compatible with the county’s comprehensive growth plan could play a role in whether zoning staff concludes the development should be approved.
“To be clear we don’t have say-so but the board has given clear direction at this point about how we feel about this use and its compatibility with our comprehensive plan,” said Commission Vice Chair Marci Woodward, who ran the meeting. “That would be considered by staff, would it not?”
“Yes,” came the reply from Zoning Director Wendy Hernandez.
Many conditions of approval
Hernandez proposed more than a dozen conditions that PBA Holdings agreed to meet to reduce the impact of a data center on the neighboring 2,300-home Arden community and Saddle View Elementary School.
Among them: an 850-foot setback along the property’s eastern edge, closest to Arden, that would limit that portion of the Project Tango site to warehouse development. Also strict adherence to sound studies, limitations on battery storage and avoidance of light pollution.
The landowner’s insistence that it would rely on a closed-loop water coolant system and haul spent water off-site also became a requirement.
Sophisticated noise studies must be conducted. To help staff review them, the developer offered to reimburse the county to hire an expert.
With those conditions, zoning staff recommended the commission approve the project. But commissioners refused.
And those conditions would have applied only to PBA Holdings, which doesn’t control 60 acres where WPB Logistics is seeking to change the approved site plan from warehouse to data center.
Further, WPB Logistics, backed by TPA Group of Atlanta, has a contract to buy 75 acres along the property’s eastern edge, where it would have to persuade staff to remove the 850-foot setback condition blocking data centers on that critical stretch.
Dispute over what the applicant sought
In pursuing Wednesday’s changes, PBA Holdings acted to fulfill its contractual obligation to pursue county approvals on behalf of WPB Logistics to allow warehouses on that portion of the property.
Had the county approved the proposal Wednesday, the development rights on the 202-acre property would have increased to 3.6 million square feet from 2.02 million.
But PBA Holdings’ attorney, Brian Seymour, portrayed his company’s proposal as merely seeking an additional 280,000 square feet of data center development, drawing a sharp rebuke from Hernandez.
“That is incorrect,” Hernandez told the attorney. “That is why we are here today. This application is to add square footage. It’s on the very first page of the staff report. They are approved for 2,020,000 square feet of EDC uses. They are asking for another 1.5 million square feet.”
Ultimately, PBA Holdings suggested its property would be home to about 1 million square feet of data center use. That calculation takes into account 206,000 previously approved square feet, 614,000 unallocated square feet and the 280,000 square feet Seymour said they wanted to add.
Cashing in on the AI gold rush
The property, first approved in 2016 under an Economic Development Center land-use designation meant to bring jobs, seemed to be set up to create a warehouse park in front of the Palm Beach Aggregates rock mine and next to a massive Florida Power & Light company power plant on Southern Boulevard at 20-Mile Bend.
Building a warehouse park appeared to be the chief consideration in the 2021 contract PBA Holdings signed to sell 135 acres in two phases to WPB Logistics.
WPB Logistics closed on Phase 1 in 2023 paying $36 million for 60 acres with development rights to build 1.2 million square feet of warehouse space.
But the gold rush inspired by the demand to build hyperscale AI data center space throughout the country to support Big Tech’s overnight rush toward artificial intelligence has changed the equation.
The owner’s new approach became public in early December with a dash toward nailing down two critical rezoning approvals in less than a week. Arden residents and other opponents got wind of the plans and forced a postponement of a Dec. 10 County Commission vote to reconfigure the warehouse park into an AI data center.
At the time, PBA Holdings asked for 1.8 million square feet of data center use only to come back in April, after a raucous Feb. 25 town hall session, with a request to reduce the amount to 1 million square feet.
WPB Logistics objected and withdrew its consent for the proposal, prompting its eleventh-hour request to block Wednesday’s hearing, denied by a judge two days earlier.
County commissioners admonished WPB’s attorney, Tara Duhy, for meeting with them on Monday without a county lawyer present after WPB added the county as a defendant to the lawsuit on Friday. After the hearing, WPB dismissed its complaint against the county.
If ‘it violates the comp plan … you can’t approve it’
It also submitted its own request to convert its 1.2 million square feet of warehouse space to data center uses, which is under staff review.
County zoning treats data centers the same way it treats warehouses, as light industrial. To revisit that determination, the county is preparing a moratorium that will block consideration of any new data center proposals for up to a year.
The county still must process the proposals submitted before the moratorium was announced on July 7.
Commissioners picked up on a suggestion from one of the public comment speakers, Tatiana Yaques, a retired land use attorney and member of the Western Palm Beach Community Alliance. She pointed to the county’s comprehensive growth plan as the key document governing the staff’s review.
“It doesn’t matter that there was a definition in 2016 and somehow it’s been interpreted through 23 different hearings by staff, by the applicant. What you have to look at is what the comp plan tells you to look at,” she said.
“It’s not about the definition. … It’s about whether it is a light industrial or heavy industrial use. Because if it isn’t, then it violates the comp plan, and you can’t approve it.
“And that’s also the way that you can send a message to staff that they can’t administratively convert the warehouse uses into (an) AI data center, because they have to find consistency with the comp plan.”
Future ownership in doubt
With the commission’s denial on Wednesday, the overall site is limited to 2.02 million square feet of development.
Both owners can pursue conversions of their existing rights, which works out to roughly 1 million square feet each, or 2 million square feet of data centers, without commission approval.
Since the two property owners are suing one another, it is impossible to know whether the county’s denial would persuade WPB Logistics to drop its plans to pay $34 million to buy the additional 75 acres.
The sale of 75 acres in Phase 2 is conditioned on the seller, PBA Holdings, having “received final, unappealable approval from all governmental authorities for the Phase 2 approvals.”
With Wednesday’s denial, that condition has not been met.
As a measure of how valuable the land is, an amendment to the contract, signed in November but dropped in December, called for PBA Holdings to pay WPB Logistics $129 million to buy out its rights.
How four people got thrown out
With all that at stake, commissioners wanted to make sure to leave no question about their position Wednesday, relentlessly grilling witnesses to build a record to support their decision that the request did not comply with the comprehensive plan.
Only Commissioner Maria Marino voted in favor of the proposal.
“While I’m probably not in agreement with the rest of the board, I will take the slings and arrows. But I think this is something that we do need,” Marino said, pointing to the heavy industrial asphalt and concrete plants that would be removed if the project went forward.
Mayor Sara Baxter, who had vowed to oppose the proposal, recused herself for fear she would not have been deemed neutral for a decision that must follow the rules of a quasi-judicial hearing.
In her absence, Woodward ran the meeting. The Boca Raton-based Republican, who is up for reelection this year, warned repeatedly during the hearing that people applauding or shouting from the audience would be removed.
Her threats appeared to be empty until about 6:30 pm, eight hours into the meeting, when Nik Salanitro, of Port Charlotte, a video blogger with the Nik & Colton show, went to the microphone.
Pointing a finger at Marino, he said she had been texting Seymour during the hearing, saying he had photos of the lawyer’s phone screen to prove it.
“There’s a lot of corruption. If you guys vote yes to this, I will spend six months making sure you guys don’t get reelected,” Salanitro said. “Your people that voted you in don’t want this data center.”
When Salanitro stepped down, a man in the back of the room applauded.
“I said the next person that claps has to be removed,” Woodward said, directing sheriff’s deputies to make him leave.
Karla Bowsher, who writes a blog called The Acreage Advocate, stood and, pointing at commissioners, shouted “Did you hear what he said?” and “He has photos that you are texting the applicant.”
She, too, was removed.
Salanitro posted a video of his comments at the meeting but has not yet posted any evidence of wrongdoing.
Later, Arden resident Ben Brown, a leader of the opposition, was forced to leave after he completed his public comments and continued to speak from the audience.
Arden resident Maria Blake stood and shouted her objection to the limited amount of time afforded public speakers and Woodward ordered her removed as well.
To assure both sides an opportunity to be heard and to prevent the audience from intimidating speakers, Woodward said she had to insist on decorum.
“No one was removed without a warning,” she told Stet News. “This is about not having the mob bully the people in the chambers. This is not performative. This is quasi-judicial.”
Watch the meeting:
