CLARKSVILLE, Ark. — The Clarksville City Council voted to rezone a piece of land for a future data center on July 8. It's been a conversation the city has had since early 2022.
According to developers, a hyperscale data center is a facility that holds critical networks and computing infrastructure to support the digital world.
The land rezoned by the city council is on Highway 123 near Palmer Road and Big Danger Road. Before the latest rezoning, developers already purchased one site in close proximity to the land on Hwy 123.
Harriett Reece, who is one of the heirs to the property, found out about the rezoning last week and has been advocating against it ever since.
"We always had an idea to make it a subdivision, or like create more houses over there, make it residential area," Reece said. "We never really thought that it would be rezoned for an industrial use."
She went into Monday night's meeting with a lot of unanswered questions about the data center.
"What kind of generator they're going to use to supply their power if the electricity goes out? And is that going to release a bunch of pollution into the air? What kind of cooling system are they going to be using? Are they going to be using fans?" Reece said. "There's a lot of unknown things. So just like being transparent with the city and the residents and answering the questions that we have is important."
Her biggest concern was how noisy this could be, as it would sit close to a hospital and an assisted living facility. Some residents expressed concerns over social media that this could be a cryptocurrency mining facility. Steve Houserman, the economic developer for the city, said neither was true.
"There are some folks that believe that means crypto mining, and I'm here to tell you without a doubt, it is not a crypto mining operation," Houserman said.
As for the noise, he said it's hardly noticeable outside.
"Is this project going to be noisy? Hyperscale data centers and crypto mining facilities are completely different worlds," Houserman said. "They are not going to build something that's going to create a bunch of noise and be a nuisance to the community. They're putting a lot of money into these things. They're sound suppression systems and they're water-cooled."
Unlike crypto farms, Houserman said hyperscale data centers create high-paying jobs.
"They are creating a couple of 100 jobs, you know, at minimum," Houserman said. "We're looking at positions that are typically middle-to-higher income, especially for this area."
State Rep. Aaron Pilkington has been in this conversation since the beginning. He's looking forward to keeping homegrown talent in the state.
"The sad thing was, we were seeing a lot of those people get trained and then go to other states," Pilkington said. "We're the best state in the nation when it comes to computer sciences. If we're creating that workforce, we should be utilizing them here in Arkansas."
He said this will be the first hyperscale data center in the state.
"We get to keep jobs in Arkansas, which means we get to keep money in our state, and then we get to bring in new tax revenue to places like Clarksville and Johnson County," Pilkington said. "We can then turn around and reinvest that into our communities and help them grow."
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