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The Raleigh City Council will decide Tuesday whether to annex a piece of land in Southeast Raleigh where developers plan to build a 100,000-square-foot data center.
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The property at 3101 Jones Sausage Road is about 14 acres and owned by “B3-SFRE JSR LLC” and Charlotte-based developer Beacon Partners.
The developers are asking the city to annex the property as industrial land, which would allow the data center to move forward. It will require 12 megawatts of critical load — the power it absolutely needs to operate, according to City Council member Jane Harrison.
Former Council member Mary Black, who served from 2022 to 2024, said she plans to speak against the annexation on Tuesday.
Black said she has concerns about the city’s current regulations on the centers. This proposal is smaller than a hyperscale data center, which can require more than 100 acres of land and over 100 megawatts of power, as well as significant water.
It falls on the “medium” part of the scale, according to a presentation Raleigh city staff made to the City Council in June, using less water and power than larger facilities.
By getting the land annexed into the city, the developers would have access to Raleigh city water for the data center. If it was built on unincorporated county land, it would have to buy water from another municipality.
Black said she has concerns about the city’s current lack of data center-specific regulations and she would support a moratorium on new facilities. Durham, as well as several Wake County towns, have passed moratoriums while they work on their own regulations.
The News & Observer attempted to reach F. Walker Abbot, the attorney representing the developers in the annexation petition, on Friday by email and phone, but did not receive an immediate response.
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The developers estimate the property will be worth $180 million once it’s built out. The total valuation of the property for tax purposes now is about $2.3 million.
Harrison said the City Council can choose to deny the annexation petition on Tuesday. She has several concerns about the annexation proposal including:
Harrison also said that she’s concerned about how transparent the process is.
Many people might not know about the proposal because it’s in the city annexation petition, meaning they would have to look at the City Council agenda and read through the 26-page petition to find it.
She also said that the process for a data center’s approval with the city may not be transparent.
If developers do get the land annexed, they will still need to get a special-use permit. A special-use permit can only be granted by the city’s Board of Adjustment, whose members are appointed by the City Council.
But that leaves the decision with an appointed body that many in Raleigh may not have heard of, Harrison said.
She said she’s open to a moratorium on data centers, but believes the city’s process right now has enough guardrails to work while the council addresses the current process.
The council will consider the petition during its 1 p.m. session on Tuesday at the municipal building on West Hargett Street.
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