PRICHARD, Ala. — The proposed Edged data center on Telegraph Road cleared another hurdle Tuesday when the Prichard Planning Commission gave its site plan approval, ending weeks of debate over whether the $93 million project had gone through the proper review.
The vote Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 29, is the latest step toward construction of the Prichard data center. Real estate attorney Doug Anderson, who represents the developers, said the approval answers one of the biggest open questions about the project’s status.
“We received our building permit before the moratorium was passed by the city council, so the moratorium didn’t affect this project,” Anderson said.
How the project ended up back before the Planning Commission
The city issued the project’s building permit on July 30. Days later, on Aug. 4, the Prichard City Council approved a six-month moratorium on data centers.
In between, questions came up about the city’s approval process. The project had not gone before the Planning Commission for site plan review before the building permit was issued. Anderson said once that was discovered, the developers agreed to come back and complete the process.
“After they gave us the building permit, the city realized that they didn’t have us come before the planning commission before they issued the building permit,” Anderson said. “So, we agreed to come back even though we have our building permit.”
That cooperative tone is a change from earlier this month. Anderson sent a letter to Council President Traci Hale warning of possible legal action if the city blocked the project. He argued the city was adding a Planning Commission requirement after the permit had already been issued. In that letter, he also said the company had revised its site plan to relocate a building away from wetlands. The council met in closed session and voted unanimously to refer the matter to its attorney, Moshae Donald-Walker.
Donald-Walker acknowledged then that the moratorium would not apply to the Edged project because the developer applied before it passed, while stressing that “the law does need to be followed.” Mayor Carletta Davis has said the city has “no legal recourse to stop it.”
Building permits versus site plan review
The two approvals serve different purposes. A building permit is generally an administrative decision by city staff, who check construction plans against building codes for structural safety, fire protection, electrical systems and similar technical standards.
Site plan review by a planning commission looks at how a project fits on its land. That includes access, parking, drainage, buffers, landscaping and setbacks. Planning commission meetings are public, which gives residents a formal setting to raise concerns about a project’s layout.
Developer addresses community concerns
The approval follows weeks of public hearings and council meetings where residents raised concerns about the facility’s size, noise, water use and effect on the surrounding community. Anderson said he wanted to put some of those concerns to rest, beginning with the size of the building.
“This facility is the size of one football field,” Anderson said. “The one my client has in Atlanta is the size of 20 football fields, and so this is a very small data facility.”
Anderson said the entire site covers about eight acres. Plans include a retention pond for stormwater drainage, and outdoor generators will be positioned behind a 16-foot wall.
He said the developers have also addressed concerns about noise, water use and pollution.
“The noise is non-existent,” Anderson said. “It doesn’t create a lot of noise. We had a sound analysis done and submitted that to the city. We use our own water, we will not take water from the Prichard water system, no pollution, no emissions because it’s not a manufacturing facility.”
What Edged says about its technology
Edged is a data center company owned by Endeavour, a firm that develops carbon-neutral data center infrastructure. When it announced its first U.S. facilities in 2024, Edged said its data centers use a waterless cooling system called ThermalWorks. The company says the system consumes no water for cooling, instead using a closed loop of glycol and air-cooled chillers.
The company’s Atlanta campus, which Anderson referenced, sits on more than 80 acres near downtown Atlanta. It is planned for 169 megawatts of capacity across several buildings. According to Edged, its standby generators in Atlanta use engines certified to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Tier 4 Final standard, the strictest federal emissions tier for such engines.
The company’s claims about its technology have not been independently tested in Prichard. The city received the developer’s sound analysis as part of the review, but the study itself has not been made public.
Residents remain divided
The Prichard data center has drawn organized opposition. At a public hearing on the moratorium, residents who live near the Telegraph Road site said they worried about their quality of life. Retired nurse Virginia Lockhart asked how students at nearby Whitley Elementary School would be able to learn over the constant hum of a data center, and questioned the school’s water supply. She later told the council that an online petition against the data center had gathered 7,000 signatures.
Supporters argue that Prichard needs the investment. District 5 Councilman Roy Smith II, who toured Edged’s Atlanta facility, has said the city badly needs new business tax revenue. Resident Pamela Jones told the council, “We are tired of fear tactics scaring us out of every opportunity.”
Council President Traci Hale, who sponsored the moratorium, has said many residents do not want a data center in the city. “All money ain’t good money,” she told colleagues during an earlier debate.
Common concerns about data centers
Prichard’s debate mirrors conversations happening in communities across the country, including elsewhere in Mobile County and in Alabama’s race for governor. Data centers are buildings full of computer servers that power cloud computing, online services and artificial intelligence. The concerns most often raised include:
- Electricity demand: Large facilities can use as much power as a small city, raising questions about grid capacity and who pays for upgrades.
- Water use: Many conventional data centers use large amounts of water for cooling, which is why Edged’s waterless design has become a key part of its pitch.
- Noise: Cooling equipment and backup generators can produce steady, low-frequency noise near homes.
- Jobs: Construction requires many workers, but finished data centers typically employ relatively few permanent staff.
- Zoning: Many local codes were written before data centers were common, which is one reason cities adopt moratoriums while they write new rules.
What it means for the city’s budget
The data center also factors into Prichard’s budget debate. The same day as the site plan vote, council members agreed to trim Mayor Carletta Davis’ proposed 2026-27 budget to $19 million. They removed projected revenue tied to the data center, including $90,000 a year in property taxes and a projected 46% increase in sales tax revenue.
“That’s revenue that they’re trying to inject into the budget that’s not here, and we don’t know if it’s coming, nor when it will come,” Councilwoman Annie Williams said.
Project at a glance
- Project: Edged data center
- Location: Telegraph Road, Prichard
- Estimated investment: $93 million
- Site: About eight acres; building roughly the size of one football field
- Site features: Stormwater retention pond; outdoor generators behind a 16-foot wall
- Building permit issued: July 30, 2026
- Data center moratorium approved: Aug. 4, 2026 (six months); does not apply to this project, according to the developer and city attorneys
- Site plan approved: Sept. 29, 2026, by the Prichard Planning Commission
- Construction timeline: About 18 months
What happens next
Anderson said developers can break ground “any day now.” Construction is expected to take about 18 months.
While the moratorium does not apply to the Edged project, it remains in effect for other data center proposals. City officials are using the pause to study how other cities regulate the industry and to write local rules. Residents who want to follow the issue can watch agendas for the Prichard City Council and Planning Commission, both of which hold public meetings.