All Politics Is Local
All Politics Is Local
What's Up with Data Centers?
Take a listen as we explore the world of data centers—their pros and cons, and what it could mean to build them in Prince George’s County as a way to grow the commercial tax base.
Hi, welcome back to another episode of All Politics is Local with me, your host, tamara Davis Brown. Thank you for joining us, and once again, I'd like to put in a plug to say thank you, thank you, thank you for making. All Politics is Local, number 79 in the top 80 of all civic podcasts nationwide, and so we are really appreciative of you tuning in, and thank you so much for also sharing the podcast with your neighbors, family and friends. So today's episode is what's up with data centers? We're starting to hear a lot more about data centers If you live in the DMV in Virginia and now in Maryland and in Prince George's County, and so I thought I would spend some time talking about data centers. So data centers are buildings that house the infrastructure that supports the world's computing functions, servers, process and store the data, commonly referred to as the cloud.
Speaker 1:Now, many of you have heard of the cloud, and we contribute to the need to have more data centers because we are using more social media. We're uploading our pictures and our videos on social media, whether it's Facebook, instagram, all of those social media sites, tiktok. Everything that we upload actually is uploaded not into a literal cloud, and I'm sure you knew that, but it is upload and stored on servers throughout the nation and those servers have to be housed somewhere, and the place that they are housed are called data centers. Data centers primary function is to process and access data, but they also store data safeguarding sensitive information, so it's inaccessible to hackers. So that's a little bit about what data centers are, and let's jump in as to why we're hearing so much about them. As I had mentioned, because we use a lot of data and store a lot of data. Just thinking about social media, you know if you have thousands of friends and each of you are posting your vacation videos, your anniversaries, your birthday pictures and research, all those things.
Speaker 1:All colleges and universities, a lot of companies are moving to AI to also streamline jobs. We're using artificial intelligence to do the work that many live people used to do. So that also takes up a lot of storage and data processing that we would normally use human brain and human minds for. So with that, there needs to be a lot of storage here in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and particularly Virginia. Virginia is the home to lots and lots of data centers, those big mega sites, all types of huge, huge acres upon acres upon acres of data centers, and we're starting to hear now that those data centers are becoming a problem for local residents, especially if they are located fairly close to residential developments. I have not driven into Virginia to go do any research on it, but we're just starting to hear.
Speaker 1:Like Prince William and Prince Frederick County, those counties are now getting some pushback on proposals to build even more data centers, and the reason that they are is because they're starting to affect energy consumption, with energy rates going higher for the residents, as well as water consumption. And you would probably ask well, why is water necessary? Well, the servers. They get very hot and they have to cool down, so you have to use cooling systems, and the cooling systems operate through the use of water, and so water tables are lower, people are experiencing higher water bills. All of the bills are increasing in terms of utilities, not because the residents are actually using more utilities, more water, more electricity but these data centers are and, as you know, when demand goes up, the price also goes up. So that's some of the issues that we're hearing in Prince William County, prince Frederick County, both in Virginia, regarding data centers so Prince George's County because we're so heavily dependent on residential property tax and income tax. We are really struggling and trying to find a good commercial tax base that can help buttress to pay for just the operating expenses of the county, whether that's police, fire, teachers, just parking planning, all of those different things, so that we don't have to increase taxes on the residents. And so there's a big push in the county to see if we can get data centers to come to the county.
Speaker 1:Now there are some existing data centers already in the county. Most of them are in the northern and central parts of the county and they actually relate to a lot of federal installations. The Beltsville area is highly industrial and so that's an area that has some existing data centers that are related to federal and potentially some state uses. Some of the larger data centers are run by your tech moguls, such as Microsoft, amazon, facebook all of we now, as they now call themselves Meta, but all of the big tech companies. Amazon also has AWS. Amazon is one of the big data center users as well.
Speaker 1:So again in Prince George's County there was a big push to actually implement local ordinance to make it easier for applicants who are seeking to build a data center in Prince George's County to go through the zoning and approval and permitting process very quickly and it basically shut out the ability of the community to, of course, have their say and give their voice to whether or not they want a data center near or in their community. So what the current county council has done in Prince George's County they created a data center task force that started back in April of this year but recently they had some community meetings. They had one in the northern part of the county, the central part of the county as well as the southern part of the county, and I attended the last one in the southern part of the county on July 26th. And Maryland National Capital Park and Planning, the planning division, actually put this on, put this public meeting on where we as citizens were able to say, okay, this is if, do we want data centers, yes or no? If we had data centers, what are some of the parameters that should be considered? What are some of the community benefits? They wanted to know just our whole thinking about data centers. Now, park and Planning's consultant is a company by the name of Gensler G-E-N-S-L-E-R. I believe they're the ones that actually kind of ran through and got our input, but it should be noticed that Gensler is a nationwide consultant to data centers and so or owners of data centers, so they are very pro data center centric, pro data center centric, and it came out a little bit in the presentation and people in the audience kind of as well. You know we like to push back on, you know all of the benefits, but they didn't really talk about a lot of the downsides, which had to do with increased use of utility demand and how that's going to impact local residents here. Whether or not you know our water tables are lower, whether or not you know the grid for our area would be severely impacted, and so those are some of the things that we have heard.
Speaker 1:There are one, two, three, yeah, four types of data centers in terms of size, so I'll explain those. The first is called Edge. It's about 5,000 to 10,000 square feet. The second is called Enterprise or Corporate, which is from 10,000 to 50,000 square feet. The third is Co-Location or Wholesale, which is 50,000 to 350,000 square feet and would have to sit on at least one to 10 acres. And then the hyperscales. These are the huge ones that we've seen being built in Virginia. They're the big tech campus again, with users like AWS, amazon, workspace, google, microsoft and Meta. Those are over 350,000 square feet and usually need 10 or more acres of land. So we have seen that in the possibility that some of our existing commercial tax base is leaving.
Speaker 1:So let's just talk about Six Flags, for example. Six Flags has a huge amount of acreage and I think you know it's already been sold and they've already got development. But the land there could be a potential spot for a data center only because the acreage is so large and there is, in my opinion, a way to kind of continue to keep it buttressed from the rest of the community. So when you drive down Central Avenue and you drive past Six Flags, you really can't see the park from the road. Similarly, I personally think that any data center rebuild, regardless of how large and of course I'm more favorable towards something smaller, like the edge, 5,000 to 10,000 square feet, as opposed to these big hyperscale ones but you really need to have that buttress between the data center and the community so that you don't not only just see this large building but you don't want to hear it. You don't want to hear.
Speaker 1:Another complaint is noise complaints about the humming and the buzz sound of not the data centers or the servers themselves, but the actual cooling system to keep the data centers from over. I mean not the data centers but the servers from overheating. I mean not the data centers but the servers from overheating. So there needs to be some forethought, and some of the things that I had suggested at the meeting is that all of the data centers need to be on land that is already zoned industrial so that we don't have to go through any zoning changes. So if we put them on industrial sites, that means that there is rarely, if ever, any nearby, although there could be, just depends on what part of the county. So, like Beltsville, beltsville has a lot of warehousing. Wholesale industrial sites that make it consistent with potentially using that area in any industrial sites in that area is a good potential for a type of data center. I don't know how much acreage is available there, but certainly the edge or the enterprise between the 5,000 and 10,000 and 10,000 and 50,000 square feet might be conducive.
Speaker 1:One of the things that we want to be wary of is plopping a data center in the midst of a residential area, and I know that there's a push in the southern part of the county to try to put some data centers. Here Again, we need it to be an industrial site. We need to protect historic preservation areas and uses. We need to, you know, protect any agricultural or farming area that's already, you know, being used, because in the southern part of the county we have a lot of farms, we have a lot of vineyards, we have a lot of historical sites that we wouldn't want to put something as industrial as a data center there. So those are just some of my personal thoughts.
Speaker 1:Was the power usage, and you know they admitted that data centers are power intensive. They need reliable, robust access to power and it's essential for their operations and can limit, you know, where data centers can be located. The second, as I also mentioned, was the water usage. Data centers often need greater access to municipal water supplies than typical industrial sites and must have proper infrastructure to manage water use and discharge. And again, they use those. They use an excess of water for air cool chillers, for closed-loop cooling, and they can use reclaimed and non-potable water to help data centers lower their demand on municipal water supply systems. So for us that's WSSC water. So another consideration besides making sure there's enough buffer between wherever this data center is going to land, not only to buffer the sound, but also make sure that the type of cooling system that they have is not dependent upon, necessarily, our municipal water supply, wssc, but potentially that they can get their own water supply and then reuse it, you know, bring it on site and then continue to reuse it to cool the servers and the chilled air coolers and all those things. So that's a little bit about what data centers are what they are considering.
Speaker 1:Again, I don't know if there are any other particular sites, but there are several sites in the northern part of the county, big mixed-use development, and all they built was apartments but they cleared 1,000, well, I won't say 1,000, but they cleared at least a couple hundred acres of trees and they built absolutely nothing there. And the other thing that really irks me about that project is that that developer got a tax increment financing a TIF, which means that they pay their property tax on a delayed basis for the promises that they're going to build. You know, this huge super multi-mix use development with all kinds of amenities, all kinds of shops and entertainment and trails and this, that and the other, and none of that has materialized. And so I say, you know, if you want to, for as much land that they've cleared, although they built a whole host of apartments, I've seen nothing else. They can plop a data center over there on that land and let them have at it, but I doubt that. It's zoned industrial and I don't even know if they have to go through the rezoning process. I know that they are on the parking planning's website lately for some new activities, so maybe they're finally trying to do something there.
Speaker 1:But I just give that example because I was just so frustrated when that project passed and then when that project was given a tip and it sat there for decades, for decades you know that was during the Baker administration. So we've had you know, almost eight years of the Brooks administration. We're finishing that out and then coupled with the first term of the Baker administration. So I just get so frustrated with the county giving tax increment financing to developers and then they sit on the land and don't do anything and then when they build they don't build what was promised and we get left holding the bag as usual. So in any event, I just wanted to kind of highlight what data centers are, what are some of the advantages not really advantages, but what you know, what their uses are and what some of the complaints that you're hearing Now.
Speaker 1:Me personally, I'm a telecommunications attorney and I actually have my own broadband business, last Mile Broadband and our company would be definitely interested in bringing fiber to data centers. So I have a little bit of a bias, I have to admit, to wanting to see data centers in the county. I just want them to be properly regulated and make sure that they stay in the industrial zone that they use. For example, instead of using electricity from the grid, why not have the buildings be all solar so that they can be solar powered Again? Instead of using WSSC water, why not have them import water from whatever source that they have to purchase it from and then recycle it and reuse it, since one of the things they say that they can do is use non-potable water to service those servers and to cool those servers.
Speaker 1:So those are some of the things that I'm thinking about, and I think you know the smaller edge, the 5,000 to 10,000 square feet or the enterprise corporate, just depending on the acreage of land, would be something that we can consider If it's in an industrial zone it's, you know, not too large like these big hyperscale where we may not have enough land to put that on. But you know we're going to have the like I said, six Flags is going to be going away. I don't know what we're going to do with Greenbelt. I guess we're going to kind of keep that as a placeholder for FBI. But we know it's not coming anytime soon and, based on the current federal administration and you know, there are some other projects that have projects that have cleared land but done nothing, I don't necessarily in other parts of the county. I don't know necessarily what they're zoned as, but we know that there's some land available in other parts of the county that could be repurposed for data centers.
Speaker 1:You know I'm even thinking of the old land over mall area. What are we doing there? They tore down some of the apartments that were directly across. I don't know if they're going to rebuild those. They may be rebuilding those. I know some newer apartments have been put up just past that area so that one may be just. That location may be just a little too close to residential area and it's probably not zoned industrial. It's probably just zoned commercial, since it was formerly a mall, but easy access on off. They could butcher, sit with some more trees Again, put some solar on top, things like that. So I'm just thinking about some areas where we had some commercial activity or we had some type of use and it's either gone away or it's going away, six Flags being one, landover Mall being another, the Greenbelt site for FBI Again, I think we probably should hold on to that.
Speaker 1:There may be a possibility of trying to get that to come back, but I don't think it's going to happen in this administration. So you know, we'll just have to sit tight there. But then there's some projects and some industrial sites in the northern part of the county. So if you'd like to find out, especially if you live in Prince George's County, but if you'd like to find out a little bit more about the task force, they meet let's see, both in person and virtually at 11 am at 1616 McCormick Drive in Largo. So the next several meetings for the rest of the year will be September 10th, october 8th and November 12th. So you can go to just do a search for Prince George's County Data Center Task Force to find out more information about what they're doing. I think the September 10th meeting will be a good meeting to hear a synopsis of all three public meetings that they've had in the county and to see you know what the next steps are and what they're going to do.
Speaker 1:So that's what's up with the data centers. We'll keep our eyes and ears attentive to what the county is doing, is planning to do, but it can be a good source of commercial tax base without there being a lot of infrastructure that's really needed. And when I say infrastructure, I'm talking about roads and so forth, because generally at these data centers there's not a lot of employees that work there. There may be a handful of employees to come check on the servers, make sure everything's working properly, making sure the cooling systems are working properly, and that's that's. That's pretty much. It Maybe some security or something like that, but it's not a whole host of employees coming onto a site. You may have a handful. Even at the large hyper scale centers, there's still not a lot of employees on site. So that means that there's not a lot of traffic congestion around those areas and so forth. The only time there's going to be anything in terms of traffic and employees is the actual construction of those data centers.
Speaker 1:So you know, it seems like it can make good money, but it comes with a lot of environmental cost, and that's the big thing that we have to be able to balance. And so to me it makes sense for the county to start off a little smaller. Start off with some edge enterprise, put those in some industrial areas, allow them to, instead of being on the grid, be totally off the grid and use any type of solar power, any type of you know wind energy, whatever they want to use. Anything besides coming on the grid and increasing the demand and increasing our utility bills is what we should be striving for here in the county, so that we get the best of both worlds. So I think it's possible. It just needs to be properly thought out. So that's what's up with data centers. Please continue to pay attention to those. I do highly recommend, if you can't attend in person, to maybe participate in the task force virtual meetings, especially on September 10th, and we'll put in the notes here this website where you can actually view the virtual task force meetings to see kind of where the county is headed. And I think everything is, you know, being reconsidered. We have a new administration, a new county executive, so you know they want to put their stamp of approval and their stamp of. You know how they envision and what vision that County Executive, brave Boy, has for data centers and this potential new type of project coming into the county. Again, there are some existing data centers already in the county. It's not that they don't have we don't have any, we have some. They're mostly, again, either federal or state sites. I think there may be one private one someone has told me about that's in the Bowie area. I cannot confirm or deny that, but there is a push by our county council to build more, to bring in more of the commercial tax base, so we'll see what happens. So that's what's up with data centers.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining me on this episode of All Politics is Local. Please tune in again when we have a few guests. And again when we have a few guests, we are looking forward to Miss Marielle Randolph, who is the founder of Art for Growth, who's going to be talking about her new feature film. So I'm excited about that. We're going to record that actually on Labor Day, so coming up in September, actually on Labor Day, so coming up in September. But come back and see what's new and help us to continue to climb the ladder of these podcasts that are really making a difference. And we're at 79 nationwide. We want to move up the ladder on that, and so I know I need to get on this microphone and record more, and I will endeavor to do so. But you listening, you sharing with your friends, family and neighbors also helps improve moving up on that list. So thank you so much and we'll see you next time or we'll hear you next time. You'll hear me next time on. All Politics is Local with me. Your host, tamara Davis-Brown.
