Chandler Council members react to former senator’s data center threat

By Jason W. Brooks
Mail | X: @JasonWBrooks2

A pair of Chandler City Council members have weighed in on what a former U.S. senator said during a pair of October meetings, with a routine upcoming vote on a development project seeming to have taken on added significance.

Not only did a development group called Active Infrastructure launch a plan to build a large artificial intelligence data center on the site of a long-vacant industrial facility in south Chandler, but former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema came to a pair of October meetings to speak in favor of council approving the development plan.

Sinema used the term “federal preemption” both during an Oct. 15 Chandler Planning and Zoning Commission hearing about the data center and also the following night during the public-input time at a Chandler City Council meeting.

Chandler’s planning staff brought the application to the commission despite encouraging the board to recommend denial to the city council. Staff also put together a long list of rezoning and preliminary development plan conditions to meet, should the commission decide it wants to recommend approval.

The commission ended up voting 5-1 to recommend council approve staff’s alternative list of conditions, making at least one modification of its own, meaning the Chandler City Council will decide the short-term fate of the 420,000-square-foot building-centered campus plan at its Nov. 13 meeting.

Chandler City Council member Matt Orlando said he’s spoken with Sinema many times, including since she spoke at Chandler’s mid-October meetings. He said he didn’t take Sinema’s mention of pre-emption as a threat at all.

“In one way or another, local authority gets usurped by the state or feds all the time,” Orlando said. “Cell phone towers are one example of this. Now, we have the chance to try to do this our way, and ask the questions we deserve answers to.”

Orlando said he acknowledges the neighborhood changes and the way an additional massive water and electricity customer could affect rates and other aspects of life in Chandler. He said that’s why it’s important to analyze the worth and the sacrifices involved in the project through the lens of the city’s long-term goals.

“The large data center that just opened in Mesa, they looked at us, first,” Orlando said. “Through the decades, we’ve said no to some things that probably would have been good things for us. Who knows? But we have to keep an open mind and keep asking questions.”

Chandler’s general plan and a 2022 ordinance place restrictions on where and how large a data center can be; a planned area development strictly for a data center is technically prohibited in the city.

Sinema described the city’s approach as antiquated.

“At least three of the occupied buildings along the Price Corridor are call centers,” Sinema said. “Those will cease to exist within five years. AI will replace call centers, as we know it. I appreciate the city’s presentation. But what was missing was a fundamental lack of understanding about what AI data centers are, and the amount of companies that want to co-locate near those new centers. I would urge Chandler to approach the AI revolution the way you approached the semiconductor revolution.”

Another council member, O.D. Harris, didn’t seem nearly as ready to cast aside thousands of jobs currently held by the tech and finance-tech communities in the city.

“Chandler’s growth must be smart, people-first, and true to our voter-approved vision,” Harris wrote on his social media. “The Price Corridor is our premier jobs and innovation district — home to employers like Intel, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Northrop Grumman, and Microchip (Technology) — powering tens of thousands of high-wage careers and anchoring our long-term competitiveness.”

Harris said he has serious concerns about the proposed data center in this corridor, due partly to the amount of electricity needed and the noise often produced.

“Once operational, they can generate constant mechanical noise that disrupts nearby neighborhoods,” Harris wrote. “These pathological noise makers would be a regular nuisance and harm the quality of life for Chandler residents.”

Sinema said she’s the founder and co-chair of what she calls the AI Infrastructure Coalition, which she says is “working hand-in-glove with the Trump Administration to ensure American AI dominance.”

The proposed plan is for a 420,000-square-foot artificial-intelligence data center to be the centerpiece of a campus with five smaller buildings on a site along Price Road, just northwest of the Dobson intersection, near Intel. The developer would tear down a former Northrup Grumman-owned building in the process.

“If we choose not to move forward with this development, the land will continue to sit vacant (Northrup Grumann vacated the building in 2019), until federal preemption occurs,” Sinema told the planning commission. “Earlier this year, the AI action plan, set out by the Trump Administration, says very clearly that we must continue to proliferate AI and AI data centers across the country.”

Sinema, who was announced by the law and lobbying firm Hogan Lovells as part of its team in March, serves as a senior adviser in the global regulatory and intellectual property practice, according to the firm.

Several residents and others, including Chandler Chamber of Commerce President Terri Kimble, advocated for the project during the commission meeting. Area residents who oppose approval call large data centers unproven in terms of all long-term impact being known yet, and chemical output and water and electricity use as known problems.

Orlando said not only could an under-negotiation infrastructure agreement mean the AI data center could help pay for the city to upgrade utilities and more along the corridor, the initial small increase in jobs would be accompanied by hundreds more jobs involving companies that co-locate to be near Intel and the data center.

“This is where we need to keep looking at the whole picture,” Orlando said.

Mayor Kevin Hartke, when asked through a spokesperson for comment specifically on Sinema’s federal preemption threat, said he wants to wait until the infrastructure agreement is completed before weighing in.

Harris said there is plenty of room in Chandler for investors and companies that want to honor the community’s vision for the Price Corridor and create real opportunity for residents without harmful side effects.

But he seems opposed to national-level involvement in such local decisions.

“I will not accept erroneous claims that the federal government ‘preempts’ cities on this kind of land-use decision,” Harris wrote. “Zoning and land-use approvals are local responsibilities guided by our voter-approved General Plan. As such, I will continue to defend Chandler’s right to local self-governance and community self-preservation — protecting our residents’ health, safety, water, and quality of life through responsible planning.”

Jason W. Brooks can be reached at jbrooks@iniusa.org. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as those meet our  Civility Guidelines.

Jason W. Brooks
News Editor | Chandler Independent

Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.

Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.

Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.

Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.

Community: He supports animal shelters.