Marana, Arizona, just rezoned about 600 acres for a large data center project from Beale Infrastructure’s Fremont Peak Properties, clearing a key hurdle for another Southwest AI-capable campus.
The town’s 2024 data center ordinance is front and center here: developers must prove sufficient utility power and cannot use Marana’s drinking water for cooling, which will shape design and limit traditional evaporative systems.
Beale says the facilities will use air cooling, but the power profile is huge: an estimated 550–750 MW per 300-acre site at full build-out, putting this in the same class as other hyperscale AI/ML campuses.
The developer is coordinating with Tucson Electric Power and Trico to fund upgrades and claims it will avoid raising existing customer rates, but that level of load will drive major substation, transmission, and grid-planning work.
Community pushback focused on water, air quality, and ordinance “loopholes,” underscoring how AI data center growth is now tightly linked to local environmental and infrastructure politics.
Supporters point to 4,200 construction jobs and 400 permanent roles, a reminder that labor and regional economic benefits remain core to winning approvals for GPU-scale sites.
This piece is worth a read for how a smaller municipality is setting power and water guardrails while still greenlighting a multi-hundred-megawatt AI data center footprint.
Source: Data center moves forward: Marana Town Council approves land rezoning
