Another massive data center is slated for metro Atlanta, further bolstering the region’s status as one of the country’s online storage hubs.
Las Vegas-based Switch submitted plans this week for a $772 million data center campus in Bartow County, which is poised to become the company’s second enormous development in the Atlanta area. Under the name Switch KEEP 2.0 Atlanta North Campus, the new project is planned for a 126-acre plot in Cartersville along its border with Paulding County.
Data centers are effectively giant warehouses filled with rows of computer equipment that house our online lives and information. According to a development of regional impact (DRI) filing, the Cartersville project aims to start with a warehouse spanning nearly a third of a mile in length.
Switch first came to Georgia in 2017, announcing a mammoth $2.5 billion data campus in Douglas County. Founded in 2000, the company and similar facilities by Google and Microsoft helped spur a wave of data center investment west of downtown Atlanta, contributing to the city’s status as a top market for online storage facilities.
Real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield found data center space in the U.S. has more than doubled over the past five years, increasing 139%. Atlanta has emerged as one of the country’s six top data center markets, which accounted for 72% of development in the sector last year. Two weeks ago, developer Vantage Data Centers announced a 1.7-million-square-foot data center complex in Douglasville.
Data centers, while in hot demand, typically employ few workers while requiring copious amounts of power and water. The Cartersville plans also include a new electrical substation, detention ponds and new road infrastructure to the proposed warehouse.
David Hardegree, Cartersville’s city planner, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the city “was kind of blindsided” when Switch approached them this spring with the data center plan.
“They were well into their due diligence when they came to us, so this really came at us out of nowhere,” Hardegree said.
Credit: City of Cartersville
Credit: City of Cartersville
He said the site, located south of the intersection of Old Alabama Road and Bates Road, will have to be rezoned once the DRI process if finished. Residents will have the opportunity to give feedback during future planning commission and city council meetings.
He said the building, which Switch expected to complete by mid-2026, would be just shy of 405,000 square feet. He added that the city did not offer any incentives to attract the project.
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