ATLANTA — UPDATE: The item was removed from the agenda on Tuesday, with the Development Authority of Fulton County indicating it will be put on a future agenda while they take into account the numerous public comments that were received on the issue.
Original story below
Fulton County's development board will consider a $45 million tax break on Tuesday for a data center being built near the Westside BeltLine.
The proposal has received pushback from urbanist advocates and some members of the Atlanta City Council, who say the project is already under construction in a prime location and doesn't merit a tax incentive.
The Development Authority of Fulton County meets at 2 p.m. to consider the proposal, for a data center being built by Quality Technology Solutions (QTS), which is outlined in their meeting agenda here. You can view the meeting by clicking through to a Zoom link from this page.
A DAFC fact sheet generally in favor of the $45 million tax incentive says it will aid in a $1.3 billion overall investment at a site "that was in a serious state of disrepair, including several abandoned warehouses and other structures that have been an eyesore and posed serious safety and security risks to the surrounding community."
The project is projected to create 15-20 new permanent jobs at the data center, according to the fact sheet, which advocates have painted as underwhelming. It also notes the expectation of 500-600 temporary construction jobs for the building of the data center.
QTS boasts on its website that its data center campus in northwest Atlanta is the "largest data center in the Southeast" with more than 970,000 square feet of total space.
The latest plot is located near West Marietta Street near the BeltLine, with existing data centers already built to the south along Jefferson Street.
The DAFC fact sheet projects that the QTS project will produce roughly $11 million a year in tax revenue in the 10 years after its completed, compared to $255,494 before the investment with the land sitting there.
Critics of the plan, including Atlanta Councilman Matt Westmoreland, who tweeted about it on Monday, contend that a tax break isn't necessary to incentivize that kind of growth and development in a high-demand area.
Westmoreland posted a copy of legislation from nearly three years ago in which the City Council called on DAFC to stop issuing these kinds of tax breaks inside Atlanta.
"Abatements in ATL should (1) ONLY be issued by our econ dev agency @InvestAtlanta — and (2) ONLY to create quality middle-wage jobs, support small biz and startups, attract investment like grocery stores in underserved neighborhoods, and to create/preserve affordable housing," Westmoreland wrote.