By Cady Inabinett

A $3 billion data center is coming to Tuscaloosa County, with county officials approving a tax abatement plan for the development — despite objections from county residents. 

Applied Digital, a Dallas-based company that builds data centers, announced it would be moving forward with a 1.3 million square foot data center project situated on 1,300 acres of land in the city of Brookwood. Kayvens LLC is expected to be the tenant of the data center. Kayvens is an off-shoot of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Applied Digital and county officials have framed the data center, which will cost $3.2 billion to construct, as an economic boon to the area. Construction of the data center is expected to create 1,000 temporary construction jobs. Applied Digital expects the center to staff 100 full-time employees by the time it is operating — with construction expected to be complete in 2028. Tuscaloosa County Economic Development Authority officials estimate that the project will generate more than $440 million for Brookwood over the next 20 years.

TCEDA officials last week unanimously approved a non-educational tax abatement plan for the development. This plan will last for 20 years and will cut taxes for the project by an estimated $314.5 million through property, sales and use tax abatements. TCEDA officials still expect the center to generate an estimated $131.5 million for local schools over 20 years through educational property, sales and use taxes.

“We anticipate that Applied Digital will be a good neighbor and a long-term community partner, and expect this $3.2 billion investment to benefit Brookwood residents for generations to come,” Brookwood Mayor Joe Barger said about the project.

However, Brookwood residents, at a City Council meeting earlier this month, expressed concerns about the center’s proximity to Brookwood Middle School as well as Hurricane Creek, a 30-mile tributary of the Black Warrior River. 

In particular, residents raised concerns that the data center, when completed, may create a “heat island” — where heat released from the servers of data centers raise the temperatures of surrounding areas. A Yale study has found that waste heat from data centers can raise surrounding surface temperatures by as much as 16 degrees, and can raise air temperatures in neighborhoods adjacent to data centers by up to 4 degrees. Brookwood residents are concerned how this may affect the nearby middle school.

“Will we still be able to stay that Brookwood is a great place to raise a family when we have children in PE class and at baseball practice at the middle school dropping like flies,” one Brookwood resident, Thatcher Rotenberry, said at the City Council meeting.

Alabama top stories in brief

Federal judge orders ICE to stop warrantless construction site raids in Alabama case

• A federal judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to temporarily stop “likely lawful” warrantless immigration raids and detentions  at construction sites.
• U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Beaverstock made this ruling last week in a class action suit brought against the agencies by a Baldwin County construction worker, Leonardo Garcia Venegas, who was detained by ICE agents three times in the span of one year. Venegas is a U.S. citizen. 
• The ruling temporarily bars ICE agents from raiding sites without warrants, preemptively detaining individuals they believe to be illegal immigrants and from detaining individuals that present evidence of legal status. These measures would prevent ICE agents from raiding work sites without warrants based solely on the assumption that undocumented immigrants might work there.
• “For the first time in a long time, I will be able to go to work without worrying that I will be arrested for no reason,” Venegas said about the ruling.

Trump to rally in Mobile ahead of midterm elections

• President Donald Trump will host a rally this Friday, Oct. 2, at the Mitchell Center in Mobile.
• The rally is meant to drive Republican voter turnout for November’s midterm election.
• Mobile is located in Alabama’s Congressional District 1, which is considered to be heavily Republican. However, nearby District 2 could have a competitive race between Democratic incumbent Shomari Figures and Republican Rhett Marques after the district’s lines were redrawn by the state Legislature earlier this year.

Alabama overdose deaths decreased 46% over two years

• Substance-related overdose deaths in Alabama decreased by 46% over the past two years, according to new provisional data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
• The Alabama Department of Mental Health released the data last week to mark National Opioid Awareness Day.
• ADMH said overdose deaths in the state have decreased due to efforts from the Alabama Opioid Overdose and Addiction Council, the Oversight Commission on Alabama Opioid Settlement Funds and other state and community partners.
• The state has received more than $720 million through settlements with pharmaceutical companies over their involvement in the opioid epidemic. These funds are then distributed through grants from the Oversight Commission on Alabama Opioid Settlement Funds for prevention and recovery efforts throughout the state.
• Since 2019, ADMH has distributed 222,000 naloxone kits statewide. Naloxone is a medication used to reverse opioid overdose reactions.

Alabama man gets new trial in 1985 murder case after judge’s ‘junk science’ ruling

• Charles McCrory, an Alabama man who has been in prison since 1985, was granted a new trial last week after a federal judge ruled that the evidence that was shown in McCrory’s trial was not substantial enough.
• McCrory was convicted of murdering his wife, Julie Bonds McCrory, and sentenced to life in prison in May 1985.
• The main evidence used in the trial was two bite marks on Julie’s arm, which the state’s lawyers said were made by McCrory during the murder.
• In the years since the trial bite mark evidence has largely been debunked as “junk science.”
• “The non-bitemark evidence from which the jury could convict McCrory was thin,” Chief U.S. District Judge Austin Huffaker Jr. said in his ruling.

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