PINELLAS PARK, Fla. \u2014 A new data center may be coming to Pinellas Park.<\/p>\n
Developer American Tower has submitted a proposal to build a data processing facility on the northwestern edge of Pinellas Park.<\/p>\n
The proposal is for a site just east of Belcher Road.<\/p>\n
Pinellas Park Community Development Administrator Nick Colonna said the submission is only a few weeks old and has so far included one pre-development meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey came as, ‘This is an item we’d like to do,'” he said. “‘We see a need in the area, and how do we best move it forward?’\u201d<\/p>\n
Colonna said the city is not for or against the proposed data center and is only exploring the option.<\/p>\n
He said there would be at least two public meetings before the project could be approved, with additional research before any decision is made.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s less than half an acre in size. It’s easy to get a handle on something like that and the impacts versus something larger, but the impacts are there, and we got to learn it,\u201d Colonna said.<\/p>\n
Nearby business owner Tom Skipper, who owns Cordelia Cabinets, said he wants more information about what the project could mean for his business. He said traffic is among his concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I wasn’t happy about it, because there’s so much unknown about it,\u201d Skipper said.<\/p>\n
There is also uncertainty about what role Pinellas County would have in approving the facility.<\/p>\n
Forward Pinellas, the county\u2019s land use agency, said data centers are a new type of land use in the countywide planning process.<\/p>\n
\u201cData centers are a new type of land use that have no current definition of their use characteristics or impacts in the countywide plan for Pinellas County,\u201d Whit Blanton with Forward Pinellas said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The agency said each local government has its own land development regulations.<\/p>\n
Forward Pinellas said it will soon meet with Pinellas Park officials to learn more about the project.<\/p>\n
They will also hold a public meeting June 29 to discuss how data centers will be treated now and in the future in Pinellas County.<\/p>\n
Skipper said he plans to attend a public meeting once one is scheduled for the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to know more about it. Hear what they say and go from there,\u201d Skipper said.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News reached out to American Tower, the company proposing the data processing facility, but has not heard back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS PARK, Fla. \u2014 A new data center may be coming to Pinellas Park. Developer American Tower has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2031,274,558,4628,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-312529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-local-business","tag-app-top-stories","tag-business","tag-matt-lackritz","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}