Companies look to develop in town of Florence
Multiple data center developments could be coming to a town outside Phoenix, Arizona.
As reported by BizJournal and others, Ryan Companies and EdgeCore are hoping to develop a new data center and industrial campus in the town of Florence in Pinal County.
At a meeting last week, the Florence planning and zoning commission received multiple proposals to rezone land along Arizona Farms Road and Attaway Road for a data center and industrial campus that would total more than 780 acres, listed in various documents as the Florence Tech Park, the Able Tech Park Data Center, and the Dobson Farms EdgeCore Data Center.
The proposals are part of an overall plan to develop the Dobson Farms master planned community into a site for industrial uses, such as warehouses, light industrial assembly, and data centers.
The proposals, from Ryan Companies US, Inc, and Dobson land Investment LLC, and Strand 600 LLC, are requesting a Major General Plan Amendment for the Dobson Farms West project to change approximately 600 acres, 239 acres, and 600 acres respectively, of the existing ±1,810-acre Dobson Farms master planned community from the current Suburban Neighborhood Place Type to the Industry District Place Type.
Documents suggest the EdgeCore portion of the project could include ten two-story data centers, each totaling 332,100 sq ft (30,855 sqm) and 72MW, as well as four substations.
Documents in Ryan Companies’ applications said its part of the project could total five data centers, two office buildings, and a general industrial building – though a site plan suggests up to 11 industrial buildings and two switch yards. Strand 600’s application site plan suggests more than 30 industrial buildings on its portion of land.
The amendment is necessary to support a concurrent Major Planned Unit Development (PUD) amendment for a plan featuring general industrial and data center uses.
Staff are yet to make a recommendation on either proposal.
The existing Dobson Farms PUD was approved in 2009, but the site has remained undeveloped.
A 400MW battery storage system in the area, known as the Lighthorse Energy Storage project, was recently given the green light by the Florence planning commission.
There are currently no listed data centers in Florence, located some 60 miles southeast of downtown Phoenix in Pinal County. Plans were filed for a potential data center project in the town earlier this year that could total just under 100 acres.
Founded in 1938, Minnesota-based Ryan is a national real estate developer and manager. The company has been involved in several data center projects. Earlier this year, it filed to develop a data center campus in Pinal County’s Eloy, some 70 miles south of Phoenix.
Launched in 2018, EdgeCore is an American data center developer and operator. It was acquired by private equity firm Partners Group in 2022. The company has an existing data center in the Mesa area of Phoenix and is developing more at the site.
Phoenix is a major data center hub, home to the likes of EdgeCore, Meta, Google, and NTT, as well as Stack, Stream, Prime, Aligned, Iron Mountain, Vantage, Compass, QTS, EdgeConneX, Expedient, Centersquare, and H5. Microsoft operates a cloud region outside the area.
Source: DCD
