A data center that brings its own power station has just cleared its main local hurdle. On 27 October the city council of Glendale, Arizona, approved the annexation and rezoning of a 160-acre site near Luke Air Force Base. The plan, known as Project Eagle, combines three data center buildings with a gas-fired plant of about 700 MW built next to them.
One Site, Two Projects
Of the 160 acres, roughly 108 go to the data center buildings, 33 to the power plant and 12 to a substation planned by the local utility. The plant side is called Project Baccara and is described as having 18 gas turbines. According to the city's material, it would sell wholesale power to an electric district that supplies the campus, and the utility would build the substation. The land had previously been planned as county territory, so the vote also moved it into the city.
The council's decision came after a split recommendation from the planning commission in September. Residents raised noise, air quality and water use; supporters pointed to the need for infrastructure to host AI computing. The city projects about $150 million in revenue over ten years.
What Is Still Open
Approval of the zoning is not a permit to run. The state has already issued its environmental compatibility certificate for the plant, but the final air-quality permit is still outstanding, and the buildings need further development approvals. The ordinance also ties the project to conditions set by the air base, among them limits on turbine emissions and on anything that could affect pilot visibility. The city has said construction could start as early as this month and the first building could open in 2028, a schedule that depends on those remaining permits.
Power On The Same Fence Line
Campuses of this kind show a pattern we see more often now: the generation is planned together with the building from the first drawing, not added after the utility says no. For the people who run such plants, that moves the questions to site level. Fuel supply, including the backup fuel stored on site, the permits for emissions and noise, and how the machines behave in an Arizona summer all have to be answered before the first turbine is ordered. The numbers published for the investment differ by source, so treat them as city estimates. Our pages on data centers and power plants describe the two sides of such a site.
Sources: Construction Review Online, KJZZ
