03 of 06 What Council hasn't been told
Who will run it?
Nobody knows who will actually use this building. That matters, because the company that moves in decides how much power, water and noise it makes.
The short version
- The developers said no operator or tech company has been picked.
- The City's rules on noise, water and gas measure real machines. With no operator, there are no real machines to measure.
- Approving it now would mean signing off on limits nobody has tested.
An empty box
A developer builds the building. An operator is the company that moves in and runs the computers, like a big tech or cloud company. The operator picks the computers, the cooling system, the backup generators, how many people work there, and how it runs day to day.
The developers have said no operator has been chosen. So right now, the City is being asked about a building with nothing inside it.
Why the City's own rules need an operator
Statesboro's data center ordinance doesn't just set limits on paper. It measures real things:
- Noise: "sound generated by the Data Center and all accessory equipment" has to stay under the limit.
- Water: a water plan with "projected monthly average and peak water consumption."
- Gas: a "will serve letter" for the gas the building will actually draw.
Every one of those depends on which machines go in. The builder's own water plan admits it: its numbers are "conceptual in nature and will be confirmed upon final engineering design and end-user operating conditions."
"End user" means the operator. And there isn't one yet.
Is it an "edge" data center or not?
Statesboro's ordinance allows one kind of data center and bans another:
- An Edge Facility (allowed) is "generally located close to the end user to reduce latency," on no more than 50 acres.
- A Hyperscale Facility (banned in the City) is "engineered for large-scale workloads," generally over 50 acres.
Burkhalter is about 26 acres, so on size it fits "edge." But an edge data center is supposed to sit close to the people it serves. With no end user named, how can anyone say who it's close to? And 99 megawatts is a lot of power for a small "edge" building.
Where the permit stands
A Special Use Permit application (Case No. SU-26-07-06) was filed by 4AM Development on July 10, 2026, the same day as the rezoning. It doesn't name an operator. The City says it's incomplete for that reason.
The City Manager's September 1 slides promised that staff "will do an extensive analysis of the end user once the application is received." Good. The public should get to see that analysis before any vote.
Read the Special Use Permit application (PDF). And the rezoning application (PDF), which calls it "an edge facility" with "only 12 employees projected at full operation."
Will Council wait for a named operator and a final design before voting? Will the end-user analysis staff promised be made public first? If the operator, cooling system, generators or power use change later, will that need a new public hearing? And if Council approves before an operator is named, how will the City check the noise, water and gas rules against the machines that actually get installed?