Developer of proposed Rural Hall data center gets more time to refine plan

The developer of a proposed 99-acre, four-building data center in Rural Hall has asked for at least another month "to refine" its plans, which could feature "significant change" to the overall design and layout.

The City-County Planning Board listed in its agenda packet for Thursday's meeting that it has continued until June 11 addressing the rezoning application from The Drox Group LLC of Charlotte.

In doing so, a presentation on Project Iron Spur before the board has been postponed for a third time.

The Planning Board's agenda packet includes an email exchange between board staff and Kevin Forbes, a project manager with Thomas & Hutton of Savannah, Ga., representing The Drox Group.

Forbes wrote in an April 15 email that in regard to the continuance request to the June 11 meeting that "I've been in discussion with our client on this, trying to understand their plans for next steps and which dates they want to hit. Will keep you posted as I hear more from them."

Planning board land administration principal planner Bryan Wilson wrote in an April 15 response that "we are anticipating a significant change to the overall design and layout of the proposed plan."

Wilson advised Forbes to ask for the continuance "so that your revised site plan, elevations and other items can be fully reviewed by the Interdepartmental committee."

The surfacing of the data center proposal has spurred significant community pushback, particularly from neighbors.

For example, participants at a March 31 public presentation by the developer expressed concerns about large increases in their monthly electric bills to help cover demand, potential long-term damage to personal health and the environment, and declining property values.

"There's too big a push for data centers now without adequate research and analysis on the impacts on people's lives," said Carol Newsome at the March 31 event.

Newsome is a sixth-generation Rural Hall resident who was handing out printouts with the dates, times and locations of public meetings.

"We're in the boom phase right now, and the bubble will burst," she said. "They're moving too quickly."

The Project Iron Spur request is rezoning the properties from RS-20 - which is primarily intended to accommodate single-family detached dwellings in suburban areas - to a special-use district for data center development.

There are five tracts involved in the potential data center campus, the bulk of which is a 111.1-acre lot at 8084 Glade St.

The other properties are: 7.71-acre tract at 8094 Glade St.; 6.11-acre tract at 490 Bethania-Rural Hall Road; 3.06-acre tract at what is listed as 0 Grade St.; and a 0.55-acre tract at 8090 Glade St.

The properties are listed as being in the unincorporated part of Rural Hall, which means the rezoning request would require the approval of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners.

According to the Forsyth GIS website, the property owners are: Julia Wall for 8094 Glade St.; James and Julie Serber for 8094 Glade St.; James Serber for 490 Bethania-Rural Hall Road; Wall Family of N.C. LLC for 0 Glade St.; and Jennifer Wall Jobe for 8090 Glade St.

The properties are near Beaver Dam Creek near where Bethania-Rural Hall and Tobaccoville roads meet. A Marathon gas station and Rural Hall Eye Center also are nearby.

The application lists four two-story buildings for the data center campus.

Three buildings are listed with a 187,050-square-foot footing and gross square footage of 374,100 each. The fourth building would have a 128,150-square-foot footing and gross square footage of 256,300.

A substation would be placed on a six-acre lot, and there also would be 256 parking spaces with the project.

Also on the proposed campus would be three ponds of 2.8-, 2- and 1.6 acres in size. There is a Duke Energy Power easement that either exists or would run through the property.

The Drox application does not list a capital investment or workforce estimate.

Michael Foess, who led the March 31 data center presentation as a consultant for The Drox Group, said the developer expected to invest around $3 billion. He said Forsyth eventually could gain between $30 million to $60 million in property tax revenue.

For comparison sake, a proposed multi-billion dollar data center on a 1,000-acre site in Walnut Cove was put on hold on April 13 after the Stokes County Board of Commissioners voted to void its rezoning approval for the controversial project.

However, developer Engineered Land Solutions of Charlotte confirmed plans to resubmit its application.

Plans for the data center, nicknamed "Project Delta" were unveiled in November that encompass up to 5 million square feet of space.

Drew Nations, president of Engineered, claimed during the public hearing that the data center could generate between $20 million and $40 million in annual property taxes and between 250 and 500 jobs.

The proposed Rural Hall data center surfaces as the facilities have become an increasingly divisive issue locally, in North Carolina and nationally.

Data centers are at the forefront of an artificial-intelligence boom in the U.S. because they help meet the ever-expanding need for information driven by industry sectors ranging from banking, energy and search engines to healthcare, retail and manufacturing.

Opponents claim those economic benefit projections are not realistic, while environmental risks - air, noise, water and higher energy bills - are very real and stoking heightened NIMBY stances.

Opponents claim data centers are a drain on the electric grid because they operate thousands of servers, processors and storage drives that run continuously. Cooling systems also use significant amounts of water and energy.

There's also weighing the significant tax revenue and potential jobs they can generate versus the strain they can put on the electric grid and water systems.

The Stokes commissioners initially approved the rezoning even though all but two of the nearly 30 public speakers opposed the project, about 350 people attended the public hearing, and even though more than 3,500 people signed a Clear Water of N.C. online petition against the data center.

A lawsuit was filed in Stokes Superior Court by Southern Coalition for Social Justice and Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of Stokes community groups and Walnut Cove residents.

The plaintiffs said the lawsuit was filed "in an effort to protect a way of life that has defined the Dan River corridor for generations - one built around farms, forests, and rural communities, that is now threatened by the county's decision to allow an enormous, loud, polluting, and resource-intensive AI data center development to move forward."

Mark Owens, president and chief executive of Greater Winston-Salem, said, "All proposed economic development projects - including data centers - are evaluated on an individual basis to ensure consistency with established zoning regulations and the community's long-term land-use vision."

He added, "Our elected leaders look at all components of these projects to make the best decision for the community."

Forsyth commissioner Dan Besse said that since the plan would represent the first modern, largescale data center project in Forsyth, "we need to take a careful and public review before setting a special-use district rezoning precedent."

"There are a great many questions to be answered before I can make an informed decision."

Although Winston-Salem does not have a direct say on the data center proposal, Mayor Allen Joines said, "I would not be in favor of a moratorium (on data center consideration) in that each project is based on its own criteria. We must balance the significant economic benefit to our area with any environmental negative impact."

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