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The town of Marana is reviewing applications from a subsidiary of Project Blue’s developer Beale Infrastructure to build a data-center complex with an unknown total number of data centers on two parcels totaling about 600 acres.

At the same time, the U.S. Air Force is giving prospective private data-center operators until Nov. 15 to file applications to build new commercial centers at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson and four other Air Force bases stretching from Edwards in the central California desert to McGuire in southern New Jersey.

The operators would pay the federal government to lease Air Force sites for data-center use. The site at Davis-Monthan would cover 300 acres.

While the Beale subsidiary is billing its proposed complex in Marana as one that would serve conventional cloud computing and general internet users, the Air Force seeks proposals to build data centers that serve artificial intelligence. This year, the Trump administration has issued executive orders aimed at removing obstacles to AI development at federal facilities, as it seeks to encourage the booming technology.

Like Project Blue — which remains active despite a stinging rejection from the Tucson City Council — the proposed new centers carry the promise of massive investments and new jobs.

Up to 400 permanent jobs would be created at the Marana site, says its developer, Fremont Peak Properties LLC., a subsidiary of Beale.

The company hasn’t publicly said who will operate the center, just as Beale has declined to identify who will operate Project Blue, although Pima County documents from 2023 identified Amazon Web Services as Project Blue’s prospective operator.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors agreed in June to zoning changes to allow Project Blue’s construction and the sale of 290 acres on the Tucson area’s far southeast side to its developers, and have resisted calls from a large group of residents to reverse those decisions. Three of the five county supervisors have said they can’t legally reverse their original vote and that they support Project Blue in any case. The Tucson City Council voted unanimously in August to not annex the site or proceed with an application for its zoning.

Fremont Peak Properties is promising to invest $5 billion in building a data-center campus in northern Marana, Beale Infrastructure said in response to questions from the Star.

The project would also generate about 4,200 temporary construction jobs, said Beale, citing an analysis of the project’s economics performed by the Chamber of Southern Arizona. By comparison, Beale has said Project Blue will generate about 180 permanent jobs and 3,000 temporary construction jobs.

The chamber’s analysis also found that the Marana complex would generate $145 million in tax revenue over a decade, said Beale, which didn’t specify how much individual government agencies will get.

Opposition over energy, water use

But just like Project Blue, these projects are also raising still-unanswered questions about their projected energy and water use — and facing opposition from many of the same activists who have fought Project Blue.

The Marana complex would use air cooling and not water cooling for its servers, just as Beale is now proposing an air-cooled data-center complex for Project Blue on unincorporated Pima County land. Air cooling will keep the Marana center from sucking down lots of water but could very possibly increase its use of energy to power its cooling.

The Air Force’s request for proposals for its data centers requires all applicants to provide their own source of water and energy supply. It doesn’t specify where the water and energy would come from.

The Air Force is seeking investments of $500 million to build data centers at Davis-Monthan and each of the other four air bases it’s seeking proposals for.

In a statement to the Star, the group No Desert Data Centers Coalition noted that on Oct. 21, more than 350 local residents attended a Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting “united behind the belief that any desert data center is wrong for all of Pima County, not just the initial Project Blue location.�

“We know that air-cooled data centers simply move the water burden from on-site to upstream energy production, and still lead to increased electric bills,� the coalition’s statement said. “No amount of greenwashing they do will change that, so to Beale and Amazon, we repeat our slogan ‘not one drop for data’ in our desert community.

“We look forward to joining community members from Marana who are ready to resist this new data center threat from Amazon,� said the group, although Fremont Properties has not yet said who will operate the centers there.

Beale officials didn’t respond to a request from the Star to comment directly on the No Desert Data Center Coalition’s statement opposing its Marana proposal.

The company said in its own statement, “We appreciate Marana’s forward-thinking approach to data center zoning. The air-cooled facility will comply with all data center ordinances established by the Town of Marana, including those pertaining to design and noise, and consumes no water for cooling purposes.�

The statement was apparently referring to the fairly comprehensive data-center ordinance Marana adopted last December, one more sweeping and farther-reaching than anything yet adopted by the city of Tucson or Pima County. The ordinance requires data-center developers to disclose how much water and energy they use and to bring in their own water supply rather than rely on the town’s supply.

The data centers not only will have to adhere to limits on the amount of noise coming from their facilities, but before they get Marana Town Council approval, they’ll first have to submit a noise study performed by a qualified outside acoustic engineer to document what noise levels are before the centers are built at the site, and project how noisy the centers will be once in operation.

Beale also said, “Core domestic water needs for toilets, sinks and other essentials for our employees would be no different than any other office building and would be met by Marana Water. Fire suppression water needs are planned to be supplied by the Cortaro Marana Irrigation District (CMID), which supplies water for agricultural and industrial purposes only in the town.�

The application, provided to the Star Friday by the town under a public records request, also said the proposal will position Marana to become a hub for technology, innovation and business growth.

“The project will create high-quality jobs related to the information technology sector, which has been targeted as one of four key industries for employment growth within the town,� the application said.

Ed Hendel, who runs an AI company and serves on Tucson’s Citizens Water Advisory committee, said he believes that due in part to Tucson’s aridity, “I think this is an irresponsible place to put data centers.�

An AI-based data center has another layer of risk attached to it because using data centers to create “super AI� risks causing mass unemployment due to job automation, said Hendel, who founded a Tucson company called Sky Island AI.

He’s particularly concerned that using AI to train super-intelligent minds, “smarter than any human, carries additional risks,� he said. “We would no longer be on top of the intelligence food chain on the planet Earth,� he said. “Right now, in intellectual capacity, we are at the top, but these (AI) labs are trying to build something smarter than us.�

Feds told to ‘streamline environmental reviews’

President Donald Trump is a big supporter of data centers. He has issued an executive order to encourage “the rapid and efficient buildout of data center infrastructure.�

The order instructs federal agencies “to streamline environmental reviews and permitting for data centers and related infrastructure by leveraging existing exemptions and creating new ones to expedite the construction of qualifying projects,� a fact sheet on the order said.

The order directed the Defense Department, the Department of Energy and the Interior Department to “authorize data center construction on appropriate Federal lands.�

The data centers will help the U.S. “secure economic prosperity, national security, and scientific leadership,� the fact sheet said, adding, “AI data centers and supporting infrastructure, such as energy systems and semiconductors, are essential for powering America’s technological and industrial future.

“This initiative ensures American leadership in AI and critical technologies, positioning the U.S. to outpace global competitors and drive innovation for decades to come,� it said.

The No Desert Data Center Coalition, however, said, “We will also do everything we can to stop the data center at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Our region can’t afford any water and energy-guzzling hyperscale data centers.

“Tech companies are pushing AI data centers as innovation, but they’re building a web of infrastructure used for surveillance,� the group said in its statement. “There are likely more data centers being planned in secrecy which is why it is so important for our Pima County Board of Supervisors still supporting Project Blue ... to reverse course. We can’t let Big Tech get their foot in the door in Southern Arizona.�

Company pledges to minimize impacts

Freemont is seeking permission from Marana to build its data-center campus on two parcels lying west of Interstate 10 and just south of the Pinal County line. The parcels, which Fremont plans to buy from their current owners, are now farmland.

Not only has Fremont drafted a specific plan for this project in conformance with the town code, it will minimize impacts to other adjacent land uses “through strategic mitigation measures,� it said.

They include:

• Limiting building heights to diminish visual impacts.
• Incorporating adequate drainage infrastructure to offset an increase in impervious surfaces by paving over much of the two parcels’ farmland.
• Providing ample setbacks and buffer yards to attenuate the impacts of noise from data-center operations.

The two parcels lie in the town general plan’s North Growth Area, which the company’s application says is “envisioned to become a premier employment hub in Marana, concentrated around Pinal Airpark [that] will attract manufacturing, distribution, and logistics industries for its advantageous location between Pinal Airpark, Interstate 10, and the Union Pacific Railroad, as well as the (proposed) future Interstate 11 corridor.�

Fremont Properties filed its applications with the town on Oct. 16, one for each of the two parcels that would contain the complex. Town staff members are currently going through them to ensure they provide all the information required by the town’s data-center ordinance, said Jason Angell, Marana’s development director.

“Depending on how those reviews come out will determine if the company needs to submit more information, he said.

“We will go back and forth as many times as we need to do to get all information; once we have complete information we schedule required public hearings, one hearing at the Town Planning Commission and one at the Town Council,� said Angell, adding it’s “really too soon� to say when those hearings will be held.

As for the project’s likely energy use, Fremont’s application notes that one of the two parcels is served by Tucson Electric Power and the other is served by Trico Cooperative. Beale has engaged with both utilities to study the feasibility of serving the two parcels with a total of 550 to 750 megawatts of electricity.

“However, the ultimate power consumption is not yet known and could vary based on utility infrastructure and power supply, as well as final data center designs. It is not yet known how much of this power could be served by the utilities’ existing transmission and resources, and how much would require new transmission and/or generation resources,� Beale told the Star.

For now, Marana’s economic development director, Kurt Woody, has signed a non-disclosure agreement barring the release of any confidential information about the project, said Jane Fairall, Marana’s town attorney. The agreement itself defines what information is confidential, said Fairall, and excludes all information that’s publicly available.

The Star has filed a public records request to get a copy of the non-disclosure agreement, and the town clerk’s office said Friday it hopes to release it this upcoming week.

The agreement doesn’t identify the other signer on behalf of the applicant, said Fairall, adding, “The other party chose not to identify themselves,� and is only referred to in the agreement as a “counterparty.�

‘American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence’

As for the Air Force data-center plan, the projects would be built in accordance with two executive orders issued by Trump, the Air Force said. One from January is called “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence.� The other, from July 2025, is called “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure.�

If the Davis-Monthan data center requires the drilling of new wells for its water supply, the Arizona Department of Water Resources will require that the center operator demonstrate its water use won’t cause significant declines in any neighboring wells.

The Air Force request seeks proposals that would, first, “optimize� the amount of money that the center operator would pay in cash to the military as a consideration for getting a lease on the air base parcels.

Second, the center operator would have to use Air Force property “in a manner that minimizes and mitigates impact and risk to (Air Force) missions, government functions, and the surrounding community in general.�

Specifically, the operator would have to include “a mitigation and contingency plan to ensure the ongoing operations and life cycle of utilities (e.g., energy, water, communication bandwidth), and access to affordable, reliable and quality utilities,� the request for proposals said.

The center operators who lease the Air Force sites will also have to do so “in a manner that supports positive relations with state and local governmental authorities and the communities adjacent to the properties,� the request for proposals said.