The Marietta City Council has approved a new data center near Delk Road and I-75, despite months of debate and opposition from some nearby residents.
Council members voted 5-2 to approve Prime Storage's request to convert part of its existing facility at 1155 Powers Ferry Place into an 18-megawatt data center.
The property is about 10.7 acres and is already zoned Community Retail Commercial. The approval allows an additional use of the property as a data infrastructure facility.
What exactly is being built?
Prime Storage plans to convert a portion of its existing 90,000-square-foot storage facility into the data center.
The company has described the project as "mission critical" infrastructure intended to provide faster local data processing for uses including:
- Law enforcement
- Medical and emergency services
- Local businesses
Prime Storage CEO Robert Moser also told the City Council that the proposed facility is not an AI-focused data center, distinguishing it from some of the massive data center projects that have generated controversy elsewhere in Georgia and across the country.
Moser argued that having this infrastructure locally would make the area more attractive to businesses, estimating that it could help attract nearly 50 companies and contribute to the creation of as many as 1,500 jobs over the next decade.
Why have some residents opposed it?
The proposal has drawn significant public opposition over the past several months.
Residents and other opponents have raised concerns about noise from cooling equipment and backup generators, environmental impacts, electricity and water usage, and the proximity of the facility to nearby neighborhoods.
Those concerns resulted in several additional conditions being attached to the approval.
Among them, the data center will be subject to:
- Continuous monitoring of the site
- An independent sound study
- Existing Marietta noise limits
- Noise-reduction requirements for cooling equipment and generators
- An agreement from Prime Storage not to develop another data center at its other Marietta properties
Prime Storage also agreed that the facility will not connect to Marietta's municipal water or electric systems.
Council members Cheryl Richardson and Daniel Gaddis voted against the rezoning.
Marietta still has a data center moratorium
Interestingly, this approval comes while Marietta has a temporary moratorium on other new data center proposals.
The city adopted the six-month moratorium in July while officials consider how data centers should be regulated going forward. The Prime Storage application was already moving through the zoning process and therefore was not included in the moratorium.
The current moratorium is scheduled to expire December 31, 2026.
Data centers have become a much larger development issue throughout Cobb County and metro Atlanta as demand for cloud computing, streaming, artificial intelligence and other digital services continues to increase.
That makes the Delk Road project particularly interesting because it may help shape how Marietta approaches similar proposals in the future.
What do you think?
This one seems to have generated strong opinions on both sides.
Do you think the Delk Road location next to I-75 makes sense for a data center, or are you concerned about having this type of facility this close to residential areas?
And for those who live near Delk Road, Powers Ferry Road or East Marietta, are you concerned about noise or other impacts from the facility?
Share your thoughts below.
Source: East Cobb News – Marietta City Council approves data center off Delk Road
