Project Blue developers are continuing their push to build on land purchased from Pima County and will now opt to air-cool the massive data-center complex, a letter to Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher shows.
Beale Infrastructure, in a letter attached to a memo from Lesher released Wednesday, says it will shift its plans to “an air cooling technology that uses a closed-loop system” instead of using water to cool the data-center complex as previously proposed, sidestepping the Tucson City Council’s decision to reject annexing the 290-acre parcel near the Pima County Fairgrounds and delivering city water for industrial cooling.
Beale had previously proposed to Tucson and county officials to have drinking-quality water delivered to the site for its first two years of operation, followed by reclaimed water delivered there by an 18-mile pipeline for which the company promised to pay the construction cost. It had also promised the project would be “water positive,” meaning it would offset the data centers’ water use by helping other users conserve or by buying additional supplies or water rights.
The massive amount of water required to cool the data center needed approval from the Tucson City Council through annexing the land into the city limits. The 18-mile pipeline also needed the council’s OK.
An Amazon Web Services data center in Boardman, Oregon. According to a 2023 Pima County memo, Amazon Web Services would be the end user of Project Blue in Pima County.
But when the City Council ultimately rejected annexation, many observers thought it was a deal-breaker for Project Blue to build on that land, since one of the closing conditions of the purchase-sale agreement (PSA) between Beale Infrastructure and Pima County was that the land be annexed.
That ultimately is not the case, according to Beale’s letter to Lesher.
“While annexation into the City of Tucson was originally contemplated as a protective provision of the PSA, only Beale can elect to waive that closing condition. The (purchase-sale agreement) and Specific Plan approval for the project remain active and valid,” Beale Infrastructure said.
Logan Craig, vice president of development, and Christina Casler, director of water, for Beale Infrastructure, confer during a public meeting for Project Blue in August.
In a news release Wednesday, Beale Infrastructure and the Caliber Group, which handles media inquiries for the developers, said the air-cooled design “was developed in partnership with the Pima County Board of Supervisors.”
The air-cooling system Beale will now use in Project Blue “makes use of small amounts of water that are continuously recirculated, thereby eliminating water loss and the need to consume water for industrial purposes,” the developer says.
“Beale’s air cooled design will consume no water, potable or otherwise, for industrial cooling. Water will be used for domestic purposes, such as kitchens, bathrooms, and fire suppression, which is required for our employees’ health and safety, on a similar scale to any other business,” the developer said in its letter.
The new design won’t increase the amount of energy Beale is requesting from Tucson Electric Power “for its initial phase, or for its full build-out.”
“Simply put, less energy is made available for computing, as more energy is reallocated towards cooling,” Beale says.
