Oakley Real Estate Partners Brown Farm Road Data Center

Timeline from the record

Newest first. Record entries come from the filings and reports the registry cites. Coverage entries are headlines from publisher feeds we monitor daily, linked to the outlet; last checked September 14, 2026.

1. July 2026

   Proposed
   Akin & Tate P.C., on behalf of Oakley Real Estate Partners, applied to rezone about 111.4 acres off Brown Farm Road from A-1 to Business Park District and to change the land use map from low density residential to industrial; Oakley presented the plan at a 2026-07-15 community meeting. On 2026-08-24 the Bartow County Planning Commission voted 6-0 against both requests, sending recommendations for denial to the sole commissioner for a final decision at his 2026-09-02 meeting. Source: Daily Tribune News

Opposition and litigation at this site

Yes. Organized local opposition to Oakley Real Estate Partners Brown Farm Road Data Center in Cartersville, Bartow County, Georgia is documented in the public record, without a lawsuit on file in the sources we track. The 2026-07-15 community meeting drew a standing-room crowd, and the residents who spoke were opposed, citing noise, water use, environmental effects, falling property values and the future of the area's historic district; opponent Alex Payne said the developers "paint a nice pretty picture" but leave questions about who will ultimately use the facility.

How the community has taken it

Reception is a sourced signal, not an editorial judgment: opposed means documented, organized local opposition is the dominant signal on record.

The 2026-07-15 community meeting drew a standing-room crowd, and the residents who spoke were opposed, citing noise, water use, environmental effects, falling property values and the future of the area's historic district; opponent Alex Payne said the developers "paint a nice pretty picture" but leave questions about who will ultimately use the facility. At the 2026-08-24 Planning Commission hearing, moved to Courtroom D to accommodate a crowd that packed it to capacity, nearly everyone present was in opposition. Board member Richard Fox read that State Rep. Matthew Gambill (District 15) had submitted a letter opposing the project. Resident Marty Knight cited the Cherokee Darter, "a federally-listed threatened freshwater fish native exclusively to the Etowah River." Cartersville resident Howard Smith was the only community member to speak in favor. The commission voted 6-0 to recommend denial.

Source: Daily Tribune News

Power and water

Developer-stated: closed-loop cooling that recirculates a fixed volume of water, with yearly water use estimated at around 10,000 gallons ("about the amount of water in a residential pool"), drained about once a year to the sanitary sewer. The developer said the site stays out of the FEMA regulatory floodway and the river keeps its vegetated stream buffers.

Notes on the record

Rezoning request by Akin & Tate P.C. on behalf of Oakley Real Estate Partners for about 111.4 acres at the west end of Brown Farm Road, near the Etowah River, from A-1 (agricultural) to Business Park District, with a land-use-map change from low density residential to industrial. Oakley described it as a micro-scale data center it intends to market; no end user has been named. The plan is two buildings of about 374,000 sq ft in total, with a power substation and a single access drive, and a voluntary condition that the campus never exceed 450,000 sq ft. Other self-imposed conditions: setbacks of at least 200 ft from residential areas, and no cryptocurrency mining. Oakley estimated about 50 jobs and roughly $5 million a year in property taxes. At the Planning Commission hearing, Oakley said the substation and the nearest building would each sit 400 ft from the riverbank. The hearing was first set for 2026-07-27 but was removed from that agenda after county staff found a discrepancy in the notice sent to Native American nations with ties to the district. The Planning Commission voted 6-0 to recommend denial on 2026-08-24; the commissioner's 2026-09-02 agenda listed zoning applications, but as of 2026-09-30 neither the meeting minutes nor any press report of the final decision had been found. No Georgia DRI filing exists for the project. No capacity or investment figure has been disclosed. Coordinates are the western end of Brown Farm Road SW in OpenStreetMap, the location the press gives for the site, not a surveyed parcel centroid.

Other sites within 30 miles

Distances are between recorded coordinates, many of which are a city or county centroid, so treat them as approximate. Cumulative load on one utility and one aquifer is the question a planning commission rarely asks.

• Atlas Development Stiles Road Data Center (Euharlee Road) · Cartersville · Atlas Development LLC2 mi · Cancelled · Opposed
• Project Bunkhouse (Digital Realty Data Center Campus) · Stilesboro · Digital Realty3 mi · Permitted · 1.3 GW · Mixed reception
• Switch KEEP 2.0 Atlanta North Campus · Cartersville · Switch4 mi · Permitted · Mixed reception
• DataBank Project Indo · Cartersville · DataBank5 mi · Proposed · 200 MW
• Kingston Technology Hub (Thor Equities) · Kingston · Thor Equities9 mi · Proposed · 150 MW
• Project Springbank (Atlas Development Bartow County Campus) · Adairsville · Atlas Development LLC14 mi · Cancelled · 432 MW · Opposed
• Coosa Data Center (Project Gracie) · Rome · Atlas Development LLC19 mi · Permitted · Opposed
• Project Sassy (Atlas Development Rome Campus) · Rome · Atlas Development LLC19 mi · Proposed

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