{"id":386899,"date":"2026-09-01T06:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T06:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/386899\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T06:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T06:24:13","slug":"new-data-center-proposed-for-western-st-lucie-county-near-interstate-95","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/386899\/","title":{"rendered":"New data center proposed for western St. Lucie County near Interstate 95"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">Land in western St. Lucie County could become a data center, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/fortpiercefl-energovweb.tylerhost.net\/apps\/selfservice#\/plan\/076e0f8a-8569-48fe-8107-d4970af1cc3b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">according to a rezoning application<\/a> sent to the city of Fort Pierce.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Willow Lakes LLC, the owner of 203 acres of land off West Midway Road and Interstate 95, submitted a rezoning application in June to change 174 acres to light industrial use to allow for a data center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">WATCH BELOW: New 203-acre data center proposed in St. Lucie County<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The rezoning application said, &#8220;the applicant intends to develop a data center on the portion of the property to be zoned Light Industrial.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Parker Whiteside, who lives about a mile and a half from the property, said she values the quiet, open character of the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">&#8220;You have a beautiful view all the time,&#8221; Whiteside said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">When asked about the potential data center, her reaction was immediate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">&#8220;I hate that idea,&#8221; Whiteside said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The land was originally planned for the Koa Bay Surf Park Community, with developer Devcon Enterprises. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Attorney Lee Dobbins, who represents Willow Lakes LLC, said those plans fell through after the property owner could not raise sufficient capital for the project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">&#8220;He was looking at what else he could potentially do at the property,&#8221; Dobbins said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Dobbins said the landowner believes the property is well-suited for a data center, citing existing Florida Power &amp; Light transmission lines on the site and a man-made lake that could be used for a closed-loop cooling system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to the rezoning application, the applicant requests the remaining 26 acres to be zoned general commercial, &#8220;intended for development for commercial retail uses, and could include a hotel, gas station and\/or restaurants\/fast food.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Fort Pierce City Commissioner Michael Broderick said the proposal could be an appropriate use of the land, but he has conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">&#8220;Data centers are kind of the rage right now,&#8221; Broderick said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Broderick said he wants developers to demonstrate there will be no impact to groundwater, no impacts to user fees from power consumption and no noise pollution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">&#8220;If they don&#8217;t, then I will not be supportive of it,&#8221; Broderick said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The rezoning application said that if rezoning is approved, the applicant intends to enter into an agreement with a partner company which would develop the data center. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to the application, &#8220;the partner company would need to submit to the City a site plan application for the proposed data center and obtain City approval of the site plan.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The application is scheduled to go before the Planning and Zoning Board on Sept. 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Land in western St. Lucie County could become a data center, according to a rezoning application sent to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-386899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386899","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=386899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}