A Maryland-based developer, Stonebridge, is proposing a 4.4 million-square-foot data center on roughly 1,300 acres in northwest Fort Meade — a former phosphate mining site now used for cattle grazing. The facility would become the first “hyperscale” data center in Florida.
The project, which Fort Meade commissioners voted 5-0 last week to approve despite strong opposition from local residents, would cost an estimated $2.6 billion.
Even with approval of the 20-year development agreement, major questions remain, especially around water, energy, and infrastructure.
Lakeland officials are paying close attention to the controversial proposal and its implications for the region’s already strained water supply.
Lakeland officials weigh tradeoffs
LkldNow asked several City Commissioners to weigh in with their thoughts on possible local impacts.
Commissioner Stephanie Madden said utilities across the country are working on ways to reduce water use, including new cooling technologies that recycle water.
“I do worry about our water constraints,” she said, “but I’m encouraged by what companies are doing to find solutions and mitigate these challenges.”
Madden said Lakeland is also evaluating what it would take to support similar projects, including major investments in electric generation.
“The goal is to not have a saturation of any one super-intense use,” she said.
Commissioner Guy LaLonde Jr. said one of his biggest concerns is the lack of clarity about who would ultimately operate the Fort Meade facility.
“That would make me pause right out of the gate,” he said.
He added that while the projected water use may seem relatively small on its own, long-term supply remains a concern.
“Water is always an issue,” he said. “We’re still growing.”
Commissioner Mike Musick said he sees potential economic upside in data centers but echoed concerns over the water supply.
“We might have multiple straws, but we’re all sucking from the same big bowl,” Musick said.
“If we don’t have water, we have nothing,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to sacrifice my grandkids’ water for it.”
Commissioner Terry Coney said he is still studying the issue and watching how it unfolds.
“Fort Meade is in a very different position than Lakeland,” he said, noting the potential economic benefits for a smaller city with fewer revenue sources.
Outpacing the aquifer
The project is expected to use about 50,000 gallons of potable water per day, though state officials question that estimate. In initial talks about the facility, that number was 140,000 gallons per day.
The water would come from the Upper Floridan Aquifer — a vast underground source that supplies drinking water to roughly 11 million people across Florida and parts of the Southeast.
Water planners have long warned that population growth is outpacing the aquifer’s capacity. The Polk Regional Water Cooperative and the Central Florida Water Initiative have projected that existing water resources will be unable to meet demand in the next 10 to 15 years.
“There will be a 96 million-gallon-per-day deficit that will need to be met through conservation and alternative water supplies,” said Susanna Martinez Tarokh, public information officer for the Southwest Florida Water Management District.
To complicate matters further, local governments’ current permitted groundwater allocations total 1,064 million gallons per day — far more than the available supply.
ALSO READ: Fort Meade AI data center project hits roadblock over new water rules
In response, the state created a rule that will cap all municipalities at whatever their pumping demands were in 2025, once their current permits expire.
To address the looming shortfalls, 16 municipalities that are members of the Polk Regional Water Cooperative have banded together in a nearly $800 million project to drill two exceptionally deep wells into the lower Floridan aquifer as an alternative supply.
Just hours before the Fort Meade vote, the Southwest Florida Water Management District sent a letter warning that the city cannot use its existing permit to supply the project’s water needs. A new district policy adopted in December requires that all water-use permits for data centers be approved by its full governing board at a public meeting.
Fort Meade is permitted for 759,500 gallons per day and is currently pumping 563,300 gallons per day.
Not a done deal
In their analysis of the development agreement, Fort Meade staff wrote that the project would provide many benefits to the small town with a population of just under 5,500, including “developer-funded water, sewer, and roadway improvements.”
Despite the unanimous vote by the Fort Meade city commission, the data center is far from finalized. The project still requires multiple state and federal permits, including environmental approvals and water-use authorization.
State officials say key information is still missing.
In a four-page letter sent the day after the vote, Florida Commerce Secretary J. Alex Kelly wrote that the projected water demand “appears woefully underestimated” for a facility of this size.
ALSO READ: Florida's commerce secretary comes out strongly against proposed AI data center
Kelly described the project as “fundamentally flawed” and warned it could pose “significant risks” to Central Florida’s water resources, energy capacity, and transportation infrastructure.
He also criticized the approval process, writing that it appears to be a “reverse engineering” effort aimed at backing regulators into a decision before key questions are answered.
Questions about power, roads, and benefits
Beyond concerns about water usage, the facility would require an estimated 1.2 gigawatts of electricity — a massive amount that has raised questions about how the demand would be met and who would pay for it.
Kelly noted that regulators have not approved a rate structure to ensure residential customers are not subsidizing large-scale users such as data centers.
State officials also flagged unresolved transportation impacts, noting that increased traffic has not been fully evaluated and that no road capacity improvements are currently funded. Proponents note that the data center would generate far less traffic than a warehouse.
The letter also challenges the project’s economic benefits. It says projections of hundreds of jobs are likely overstated, noting that hyperscale data centers typically employ relatively small local staffs and rely heavily on remote workers.
Even a touted $10 million contribution from the developer is not new revenue, the letter notes, but an advance on future property tax payments.
The big picture
The Fort Meade proposal is part of a broader wave of data center projects across Florida, driven by demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
For Lakeland and the region, the question isn’t just whether the Fort Meade project moves forward. It’s how much additional demand the region’s water system can absorb — and who decides how that limited resource is allocated.
In this case, that decision may ultimately rest not with local officials, but with regional and state regulators.
Cindy Glover is a reporter for LkldNow, a nonprofit newsroom providing independent local news for Lakeland. Read at LkldNow.com.
