Data Center Company Oppidan Connect Eyes 30,000+ Square Foot Facility in Humboldt County

Humboldt County, a remote and sparsely populated region on California's northern coast, appears an unlikely candidate for data center development. Yet Arcata already hosts a 10,000-square-foot facility that serves as a landing point for undersea fiber optic cables stretching 10,000 miles from eastern Asia and emerging near Eureka at the former pulp mill on the Samoa Peninsula. Those cables connect U.S. customers to overseas computer servers, transmitting data at the speed of light. By virtue of being one of the westernmost locations on the Western Seaboard, Eureka has gained access to some extraordinarily high-tech infrastructure: the physical backbone of the globalized internet.

Now another facility could be on the way. Data center company Oppidan Connect confirmed that it is interested in constructing a center similar to the one in Arcata somewhere in Humboldt County. Drew Johnson, Oppidan's Data Center Lead, said the facility would serve as a "signal booster" for a different network — a yet-to-be-built undersea cable landing station north of California.

The project is far from guaranteed. Arcata is just one location on a list the company is considering, Johnson said, and wherever Oppidan ultimately builds would need to be in Northern California with access to sufficient energy and water. The proposed data center would span approximately 30,000 to 50,000 square feet, draw between 4 and 8 megawatts of electricity at peak usage, and employ around 20 full-time workers.

Johnson emphasized that Oppidan is not looking to build an AI-focused data center or one dedicated to data storage. He characterized the project as more akin to utility infrastructure construction than what many people typically associate with data centers. "This is part of getting network to eyeballs and population," he said. "This is just a telecommunications center."

The process remains at an early stage. Oppidan has not filed any applications to develop the center, and Johnson noted that navigating zoning and permitting requirements can take years. Operations would intensify in phases as demand increases.

Arcata City Manager Merritt Perry told Oppidan when it reached out earlier this year that the city is not an ideal location for a data center due to limited available space. Its elected officials have also shown interest in slowing down or even halting data center development altogether, though Perry acknowledged that businesses with heavy internet usage might appreciate being near such a facility.

"I think the real question is: Where do you draw the line?" Perry said. "And what is beneficial to the community? Not detrimental. And I think what we're seeing is a lot of pushback on AI right now, with the potential threat of AI." He noted that public concern tends to focus on AI data centers with higher consumptive use, while connectivity and capacity for remote work and businesses are generally viewed favorably. "But I don't know where our council will land on it," he added.

Several Oppidan projects have been blocked by moratoriums, according to Johnson, and the company is willing to work with communities that have passed one. "If a city is going about a moratorium in a smart way — in that they want to adopt a specific code to tighten their standards so they know what to expect, and people who want to invest know what to expect — I think there's more opportunity there than being in this frenzy where they adopt a moratorium out of fear, with no real intention or guidance to ever come out of it," he said. "Which is every town's land use choice, right?"

The proposed facility highlights the growing tension between the infrastructure demands of an increasingly connected world and local communities' concerns about energy consumption, land use, and the rapid expansion of AI-driven computing. While Oppidan positions the project as essential telecommunications infrastructure rather than an AI data center, the broader debate over data center proliferation — particularly in environmentally sensitive or space-constrained regions — is likely to shape how the project moves forward.