OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — A large data center planned on the west side of Oklahoma City, Okla., cleared a key hurdle Tuesday, when the City Council voted to rezone the land for the project. The approval came with strings attached, and the mayor made clear it should not be read as an open door for more facilities like it.
The project comes from Beltline Energies and is planned for land near Interstate 40 and Frisco Road. With the vote, that ground is officially reclassified so a big technology facility can be built there, a site meant to host outside companies running cloud or artificial intelligence computing.
Council members attached conditions that deal with three of the biggest worries about data centers: how much water the site uses, how much electricity it pulls from the grid and how much noise it makes. Those terms are legally binding on the developer.
Mayor David Holt explained why this proposal got a vote at all. The company filed its application before the city put its moratorium on data center projects in place, he said, so the council treated it as a one-time case tied to an unusual set of facts. He said the decision is not a signal that the city is welcoming data centers in general.
Construction is not about to start. The city said more agreements still have to be worked out with the developer before any work can begin, and no start date has been set.
The vote stands out in a state that has been tough on these projects. Other data centers proposed for the area have not made it to completion, and the city’s own pause on new applications remains in effect for anyone who did not file before it began.
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