Prologis wins Atlanta campus OK

Coweta County commissioners voted 3-2 on April 7 to rezone more than 800 acres for Prologis’ Project Sail data-center campus near Newnan, south of Atlanta. (ajc.com) The approval clears the way for nine buildings totaling about 4.34 million square feet on 829 acres off Welcome to Sargent Road and Wagers Mill Road. County records and local reports say the site was changed from Rural Conservation to Industrial. (fox5atlanta.com) Project Sail has been pitched as a roughly $17 billion investment, and industry reports estimate the campus could draw about 900 megawatts of electricity if fully built. The land sits near Georgia Power’s Plant Yates, a selling point supporters highlighted during the rezoning fight. (datacenterdynamics.com) A data center is a warehouse-sized building packed with computers that store files, run apps and process internet traffic. Those machines create heat, so operators need large cooling systems, which can mean very high power use and, in some designs, heavy water use. (northgeorgiawater.org) That water question has become a live issue across metro Atlanta as developers chase land with power access. The Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District says the region had more than 50 operating data centers and more than 40 proposals under consideration as of summer 2025. (northgeorgiawater.org) The district says cooling systems matter: evaporative designs may use as much as 9 million gallons a day, while closed-loop or near-waterless systems can cut use to under 100,000 gallons a day. Metro Atlanta relies mostly on surface water and sits at the headwaters of six small river systems, which limits supply during drought. (northgeorgiawater.org) Local opposition in Coweta County centered on that resource strain, along with noise, traffic and the loss of rural land. FOX 5 reported neighbors and environmental groups raised concerns about water pollution and community character before the vote. (fox5atlanta.com) Residents organized for months against the plan. Data Center Dynamics reported that a legal-defense fundraiser had raised about $27,000 and that a Facebook group opposing the project had around 4,800 members as people discussed possible court action after the rezoning passed. (datacenterdynamics.com) County leaders had already slowed the market once before. Coweta imposed a 180-day moratorium on new data-center proposals in May 2025, and the county later adopted a formal data-center ordinance on December 16, 2025. (wsbtv.com) (coweta.ga.us) The April 7 vote ends that 15-month local fight, but it does not answer the biggest operating questions yet. Local reports say Coweta officials have not named tenants or a construction start date, so the next phase will turn on permits, utility planning and how Prologis chooses to cool the campus. (ajc.com) (fox5atlanta.com)