By Gordon Anderson | gordon@rantnc.com
Nearly 20 people addressed the Lee County Board of Commissioners on Monday, expressing opposition to a proposed data center on Lower Moncure Road.
The data center proposal became public on June 8, when it was announced that Virigina-based PointOne had applied for a permit to construct a 300,000 square foot data center on 56 acres off Lower Moncure Road. The facility, if built, would be operated by Dallas-based CyrusOne. The proposal is “phase one” of a development that totals 430 acres. Uses for the remainder of the development have not been announced.
PointOne has said the project represents a $900 million tax base investment that should bring in at least $1 million annually in new tax revenues for Lee County. But the project has received a large amount of criticism, particularly online, from data center opponents concerned about environmental and other potential impacts.
Monday’s meeting was over capacity, with a large number of people watching proceedings from outside the meeting room. Those who spoke did so during the meeting’s public comment period. The agenda didn’t include any action items related to the data center proposal.
Lower Moncure Road resident Eric Evenson said he believed the land the data center is proposed for was rezoned under false pretenses. The commissioners rezoned the land in August of 2025.
“When the representative from (real estate developer) Trustwell delivered a 28-minute presentation for a standard, quiet business park bringing 500 jobs, did you believe him?” Evenson asked. “The citizens believed him, so we accepted the rezoning. You believed him, so you granted it. Do you believe him now that the mask has slipped? Would this board ever trust them on another land use application? This isn’t economic growth, it’s an extraction of Lee County’s resources.”
Resident Michelle Eaves concurred, saying the proposal “is not a typical light industrial business.”
“A modern data center is an industrial scale operation that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” she said. “It requires enormous amounts of electricity, significant infrastructure, industrial cooling equipment, backup diesel generators, and depending on the cooling system used, substantial water resources. That is not the image most have when they hear light industrial.”
Several speakers discussed “infrasound,” which is sound below the normal threshold of human audibility (typically below 20 Hz).
“Low frequency, long amplitude waves is responsible for something called Havana Syndrome,” said resident Gary Phelps, referencing a disputed explanation for a cluster of illnesses reported by some diplomats in Cuba. “This is something a foreign nation did to our delegates. Would you willingly, voluntarily do this to your own citizens?”
Resident George Gilson said he didn’t believe data centers would be viable businesses long term, and warned that the county could be negatively impacted if that were the case.
“When this false boom is over, we’ll be left with a huge unusable property and buildings no one will be able to afford,” he said. “And in the end, the county and the taxpayers will be caught holding the bag.”
If the project is permitted, PointOne is looking to begin work in the fall of this year and be operational sometime in 2028. Prior to the June announcement, there had been months of speculation about the possibility of a data center in Lee County dating back to 2025, when it was reported that a company called Deep River Data was interested in accessing natural gas from an old test well in order to power an AI data operation. Concerns about fracking, as well as potential adverse impacts from that project – which was never officially proposed or submitted for approvals – led local leaders to adopt a rule set governing data centers in Sanford and Lee County. Those rules, among other things, banned fracking-associated data centers.
Most of the speakers on Monday continued to call for the county to enact a moratorium on data centers.
“Twenty one jurisdictions in North Carolina have paused data centers, including Charlotte,” said resident Keely Puricz. “And the list is growing.”
Commissioner Robert Reives Sr., a Democrat, said at the meeting’s end he thought the county needed to “work on” helping the public understand what powers the board has and doesn’t have. His comments appeared to refer to the county’s permitting process, which is governed by its adopted zoning and development regulations.
“Some folks seem to think that we’re on the front end of everything and that there’s no process to be followed,” he said. “I don’t expect the average person to know all the things that we have to wait for and go through before we make decisions, but I do feel feel sometimes we’re unfairly blamed for things that are not in our purview.”
Jimmy Randolph and Sanford Growth Alliance is responsible for bringing this data center to our county! SAGA needs to be included in any lawsuit action along with county commissioners! Dismantle Jimmy Randolph and his SAGA!!
I do not have a problem with Data Centers per se. They are part of what makes the internet work. They support all sorts of media that all of us use daily. The general public is the impetus for these data centers being built. Businesses, schools, and individual homeowners are driving the need for data centers. We need them to be competitive on the world stage.
However, it is within our jurisdiction to place requirements on these data centers. The biggest issue seems to be their energy usage.
Let’s require them to build solar energy farms and utilize geo-thermal technologies to reduce their carbon footprints. Our local and state authorities can make this happen, and all of us will be better for it.
Please, no to the solar junk. Completely made of toxic materials and cannot be deposed of safely when damaged or of old age (less than 20 years). Same for the batteries needed to ride through the nights and bad weather. A Small Modular Reactor is very expensive but the best way to go.