u/Lilmissgrits

Last night the rezoning commission voted 4:3 to recommend approving the data center at 1155 Powers Ferry Place. I just sent this letter to city council- CC: Representative Gabriel Sanchez, Representative Mary Frances Williams, & Senator Doc Rhett- and am sharing here for transparency. See my post history to follow along. Feedback encouraged and I hope to see you at the Council meeting on 7/8.

Dear Mayor and City Council,

As you are now aware, the Planning Commission approved Case Z2026-12 — the proposed data center at 1155 Powers Ferry Place — in a 4-3 vote on July 1, 2026. That margin is notable. Nearly half of the Planning Commission voted against a proposal that the City's own staff had already recommended for denial. The July 8th City Council hearing is now the final opportunity for public accountability before a vote with lasting consequences for this community. I am writing to formally outline what I believe must be publicly addressed before that vote takes place.

Since my initial correspondence, I have continued my research and have received substantial feedback from data center industry experts employed at major corporations in the Atlanta area. What I have learned has deepened, not diminished, my concerns. These are not the opinions of uninformed residents. They are the assessments of professionals who work in this industry daily and who reviewed the available application materials with the same conclusion: this application is materially incomplete, and the conditions under which it is being considered are ones that experienced developers exploit when they identify a municipality without adequate protective standards.

The following questions and concerns are drawn directly from the application materials, the Staff Analysis, expert input, and the ongoing community dialogue that has been taking place since June 10th. Each deserves a clear, documented, public answer — not a general assurance, and not a deferral to future permitting stages.

THE STAFF RECOMMENDATION WAS DENIAL — AND THAT HAS NOT CHANGED.

The City's own Department of Development Services concluded that this rezoning request does not align with Marietta's Comprehensive Plan, specifically because data centers operate more like industrial facilities than the commercial and office uses the Regional Activity Center designation is intended to support. The Planning Commission's 4-3 vote did not resolve that finding — it overrode it. The City Council should enter the July 8th hearing prepared to explain, on the record, why overriding staff's recommendation is in the public interest. A bare majority of a planning commission is not a sufficient answer.

CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL DATA REMAINS MISSING.

As of the application filing, the following information was listed as "Not Provided":

• Approximate water usage by proposed use
• Estimated waste generated by proposed development
• Wetland presence and compatibility — listed as "Unknown"

Additionally, 2.5% of the property lies within the floodplain associated with Rottenwood Creek, and a floodplain elevation certificate has not yet been required. The closed-loop cooling system cited in the application is described in generic terms with no technical specifications whatsoever. Before a vote, the Council must require that this data be provided, reviewed, and made publicly available. Approving a rezoning with this information still missing is approving a project the City does not yet fully understand.

INFRASTRUCTURE COST ALLOCATION HAS NOT BEEN ANSWERED.

The Marietta Power section of the Data Appendix provides nothing beyond a contact name and phone number. There is no documentation of what special conditions would be required to serve an 18-megawatt facility, no analysis of what load this places on the grid, and no public accounting of how costs that flow from MEAG to MPW as a result of this demand increase would be allocated.

The math here is not abstract. Standard data center facilities typically require $7 million to $12 million per megawatt for grid upgrades. For an 18-megawatt facility, that translates to a projected infrastructure cost of between $126 million and $216 million — costs that MEAG would ultimately impose on MPW. The Council has stated publicly that any future developer would bear all infrastructure and utility costs — not residents. That commitment is meaningless without a documented, enforceable mechanism that explains precisely how it works.

Before the July 8th vote, the Council must publicly answer the following:

• How will the $126 million to $216 million in projected grid upgrade costs be structured, funded, and guaranteed so that MPW customers do not absorb them through rate increases?
• What deposit or financial assurance will the developer be required to place — and in what amount — to protect MPW ratepayers if the project stalls, changes hands, or the developer cannot perform?
• What contractual guardrails exist to prevent MEAG from passing increased costs to MPW as a direct result of the load added by this facility?
• Are these protections enforceable through the rezoning conditions or a separate development agreement, and will that agreement be made publicly available before the vote?

A general assurance that the developer will "bear all costs" is not a guardrail. It is a statement. Residents deserve the documentation behind it.

THE APPLICANT'S IDENTITY REMAINS REDACTED FROM PUBLIC DOCUMENTS.

The landowner, applicant, and end-user are blacked out throughout the publicly available application materials. Marietta residents are being asked to accept a major development in their community without knowing who is proposing to operate it. This is not a procedural technicality — it is a structural transparency failure, and recent history makes it a material one. The Grind project — the prior data center proposal that consumed significant community attention and Council resources — was backed by a developer who could not secure bank financing. That fact was not disclosed to the public during the Grind process; residents had to uncover it independently. Financial qualification is not a minor detail when a project of this scale is being proposed in a residential and commercial corridor. The Council should not vote on Z2026-12 until the full identity of all parties is disclosed to the public and their financial capacity to complete and sustain the project has been documented and made available for community review.

This brings me to a point that the data center industry itself has recognized. Microsoft — one of the largest data center operators in the world — no longer engages with developers who require non-disclosure agreements that prevent community transparency. Their position is straightforward and grounded in experience: community understanding and genuine buy-in are not optional courtesies. They are material factors in whether a project succeeds long term. A data center that a community does not understand, did not meaningfully participate in approving, and cannot hold accountable is a liability — not an asset. If one of the most sophisticated data center operators on the planet has concluded that NDAs and identity concealment are incompatible with successful community outcomes, Marietta should ask itself why it is entertaining an application that reflects the opposite standard.

THE CITY'S OWN STAFF IDENTIFIES THE NEED FOR A DATA CENTER ORDINANCE.

The Staff Analysis explicitly states that Marietta's zoning ordinance does not define data centers as a separate use, distinguish between large-scale and small-scale facilities, or include standards specific to their equipment or operations, and recommends the City evaluate this "as part of future zoning code updates." Furthermore, the Staff Analysis notes that Cobb County, the City of Atlanta, Athens-Clarke County, and Clayton County have each adopted moratoriums or new zoning standards to address data center impacts. Marietta's own neighbors have recognized this gap. I would ask the Council directly: why has Marietta not followed suit, and what is the timeline for doing so?

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE MUST BE ACKNOWLEDGED PUBLICLY.

Attorney Parks Huff of Sams, Larkin & Huff, LLP filed a preemptive Constitutional Challenge as part of this application, asserting that denial would constitute an unconstitutional taking of property. This document was filed on the same day as the application itself — May 19, 2026. The legal threat was not a response to resistance. It was the opening move. Residents deserve to understand that this pressure exists, what it means, and whether it is influencing the process. The Council should address this on the record at the July 8th hearing.

THIS APPLICATION WAS NOT TRANSPARENTLY COMMUNICATED TO RESIDENTS.

I found this application by manually clicking through every PDF on the City's agenda page. It does not appear through any standard search of mariettaga.gov. No proactive notification was sent to residents. This is the second consecutive data center proposal for which the community has had to self-discover critical information under time pressure. Whatever the Council decides on July 8th, it must also decide — publicly and on the record — how it will ensure this does not happen again.

THE ECONOMIC CASE HAS NOT BEEN HONESTLY PRESENTED.

The economic case for this rezoning deserves scrutiny grounded in actual numbers, not projections. The property at 1155 Powers Ferry Place currently carries a net taxable value of $6,626,040 and generates approximately $191,408 in annual property tax at current millage rates — roughly $1.97 per square foot of building space. A consumer-facing commercial tenant operating in the same building at standard retail or restaurant performance levels would generate between $2.00 and $3.50 per square foot in property tax alone — $194,760 to $340,830 annually — before a single dollar of sales tax, business licensing revenue, or economic spillover to surrounding businesses is counted. Marietta collects 8% sales tax. An active commercial use on this corridor generates that revenue continuously. A data center generates none of it — ever. It employs, by the applicant's own representation, minimal on-site staff. It produces no foot traffic. It creates no economic multiplier effect for neighboring businesses. And it requires between $126 million and $216 million in grid infrastructure investment that must be accounted for somewhere. The Council should not characterize approval of this application as an economic win for Marietta without presenting a complete, honest, side-by-side comparison of what this site could generate under its existing zoning versus what a data center would actually contribute — net of infrastructure costs, net of foregone sales tax, and net of the opportunity cost of removing an active commercial property from the tax and revenue base it is currently capable of producing.

THE APPLICATION ITSELF DEMONSTRATES THAT MARIETTA IS BEING TARGETED PRECISELY BECAUSE IT LACKS STANDARDS

One of the most revealing aspects of Case Z2026-12 is not what the application contains — it is what it does not contain, and what that absence tells us about how this developer views the City of Marietta as a regulatory environment.

A well-prepared, good-faith rezoning application for an 18-megawatt data center — a facility with continuous power demand equivalent to a small city, adjacent to residential housing and a creek with floodplain concerns — would be expected to include, at minimum: a power demand analysis prepared by a licensed electrical engineer, a full acoustical study conducted at residential property lines under operational load conditions, water consumption estimates at peak capacity, wastewater generation projections, a wetland determination, detailed cooling system specifications prepared by a mechanical engineer, a generator emissions analysis, and a financial qualification package demonstrating the developer's capacity to fund both the project and the required infrastructure improvements.

This application contains none of those things.

What it contains instead is the following:

On power demand: The Marietta Power section of the Data Appendix — the section specifically designated to address electrical requirements — provides a contact name and a phone number. That is the entirety of the response to the question of what special conditions would be involved in serving an 18-megawatt facility. No load analysis. No grid impact assessment. No discussion of MEAG pricing implications. A phone number.

On water usage: "Not provided." This is the applicant's own answer, submitted to the City of Marietta, for a facility that will operate cooling systems continuously, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, on a property that drains to Rottenwood Creek and sits partially within a mapped floodplain.

On wastewater: "Not provided." Same facility. Same creek.

On wetlands: "Unknown." The application acknowledges that wetlands may be present and then offers no determination, no study, and no plan. The question of whether the use is compatible with possible wetland presence is also answered: "Unknown."

On cooling system specifications: The application states that a "closed-loop air-cooled system" will be used. This is a category of technology, not a specification. It tells the City nothing about the actual equipment, the noise profile under load, the heat rejection method, the water consumption, or the mechanical design. Industry experts I consulted described language of this type as characteristic of a sales document, not an engineering submission. The Staff Analysis reached a similar conclusion, noting that "no additional information or specifications were provided to verify how these systems would be designed or operated."

On noise: The applicant states that equipment will be housed in "purpose-built enclosures." No acoustical study was provided. No decibel measurements at residential property lines. No specifications for the enclosures themselves. The Staff Analysis noted that both the chiller yard and the generator yard, as shown in the submitted plans, lack enclosures entirely — directly contradicting the applicant's own representations.

On the identity of the applicant: Fully redacted. The City of Marietta is being asked to rezone a 10.727-acre parcel adjacent to a multi-family residential development for an intensive industrial use, and the entity proposing to operate that facility has not disclosed its identity to the public.

On financial qualification: Nothing. No evidence of secured financing. No committed capital. No performance bond. No escrow. No financial assurance of any kind that the developer can fund the project, let alone the $126 million to $216 million in grid infrastructure upgrades that an 18-megawatt facility would be expected to require from MEAG. This is not an oversight. The Grind project was backed by a developer who could not secure bank financing. That project consumed significant Council and community resources before collapsing. The conditions that made Marietta attractive to Grind have not changed. Filing an incomplete application with a redacted identity and a preemptive legal threat is not the behavior of a developer who expects to be asked hard questions. It is the behavior of a developer who has correctly determined they will not be.

On the constitutional challenge: Rather than address the substantive planning deficiencies in the application, the applicant's attorney filed a preemptive Constitutional Challenge asserting that denial of the rezoning would constitute an unconstitutional taking of property. This document was filed on the same day as the application itself — May 19, 2026. The legal threat was not a response to resistance. It was the opening move. That tells you something important about how this developer views its relationship with the City of Marietta.

What This Pattern Reveals

This is not an application that was prepared to inform. It was prepared to clear a bar — and the bar was set by Marietta's current lack of any data center-specific standards whatsoever.

When a city has no ordinance defining what a data center is, no standards for what an application must contain, no noise thresholds specific to continuous mechanical operation, no grid impact study requirement, no financial qualification threshold, and no requirement that the applicant's identity be disclosed — a developer does not need to provide any of those things. They simply do not include them. The application reflects exactly and only what Marietta's current code requires, which is to say: almost nothing specific to this use.

The City's own Staff Analysis acknowledges this directly, noting that "since Marietta's zoning code does not include specific requirements for data center equipment, noise levels, or screening standards, more detailed information on these items would need to be provided to evaluate the potential impacts on surrounding properties." The staff is telling the Council, in plain language, that they cannot fully evaluate this application because the code does not require the information needed to do so. And yet the application advanced through Planning Commission on a 4-3 vote.

This is precisely the dynamic that experienced developers exploit. Cities without standards are not protected by good intentions — they are protected only by what they require in writing. A developer who files a Constitutional Challenge on day one, redacts their identity from public documents, submits "Not Provided" where engineering data should be, and describes a cooling system in marketing language rather than specifications is not a partner working in good faith with the community. They are a party that has correctly identified a city with no enforceable standards and filed an application calibrated precisely to that absence.

The Grind project followed a similar pattern — a newly incorporated company with fewer than ten employees, a CEO who could not secure bank financing, documentation that experts described as contradictory and incomplete, and a negotiation process conducted under conditions that prevented the community from understanding what was agreed to on their behalf. Grind is gone. But the conditions that made Marietta attractive to Grind have not changed. And the filing of Z2026-12 — a second data center application, with a redacted applicant, missing environmental data, no financial qualification, and a preemptive legal threat — suggests that word has gotten around.

Marietta is a target. Not because it is a bad city — it is not. It is a target because it is a good city that has not yet built the regulatory infrastructure to protect itself from developers whose business model depends on finding municipalities that will approve applications other jurisdictions would not accept. The solution is not to reflexively deny every application. The solution is to build the standards that ensure only serious, qualified, financially sound, and genuinely community-beneficial proposals can clear the bar.

Until those standards exist, the bar is not protecting anyone.

A FINAL NOTE ON INTENT

I want to be unambiguous on one point: I am not against data centers. Data centers are a legitimate and, when done correctly, genuinely beneficial form of development. They can create jobs, generate tax revenue, strengthen digital infrastructure, and — with the right technology and the right developer — be good neighbors to the communities that host them. There are data centers operating across this country that represent exactly that kind of win-win outcome, and Marietta should absolutely be open to being one of those communities.

What I am against is a process that leaves residents holding the bag when it goes wrong. And it does go wrong. Developers acquire approvals, sell the project to a third party, and walk away — leaving the community with a facility it did not fully understand, operated by an entity it never vetted, with infrastructure cost obligations that were promised but never enforced. The original developer is gone. The NDA is still in place. The rate increases arrive anyway. And the residents who were told not to worry are left with no recourse because nothing was ever put in writing in a form that survived the sale.

This is not a hypothetical. It is a documented pattern in municipalities across the country that approved data center projects without adequate standards, financial guardrails, or identity disclosure requirements. Marietta does not have to repeat those mistakes. The questions I am asking — who is the applicant, how will grid costs be covered, what are the environmental impacts, what happens if the project changes hands — are not obstructionist. They are the minimum due diligence that any responsible governing body owes its residents before approving a development of this scale and complexity. Answering them does not kill good projects. It kills bad ones. And that is exactly what they are designed to do.

I AM FORMALLY REQUESTING THE FOLLOWING BEFORE ANY VOTE IS TAKEN ON JULY 8TH:

1. That the Council table Z2026-12 pending the adoption of a data center-specific ordinance that addresses noise standards, environmental impact requirements, water and power usage documentation, and infrastructure cost responsibility.
2. That any future data center application require completed environmental and economic impact studies as a condition of consideration — not as an afterthought.
3. That the Council commit publicly to a timeline for developing a data center ordinance, consistent with the approach taken by Cobb County, Atlanta, Athens-Clarke, and Clayton County.
4. That residents be notified proactively — not through a non-searchable PDF attachment on an agenda page — of pending applications of this scale and nature, with sufficient lead time to participate meaningfully in the process.
5. That the City adopt a formal policy requiring full applicant and end-user disclosure on all rezoning applications, and declining to engage with any developer or operator requiring a non-disclosure agreement that withholds material information from the public.

The 4-3 vote at the Planning Commission level, against a staff recommendation of denial, with an applicant whose identity is redacted, with missing environmental data, with no financial qualification, and with no governing ordinance, is not a foundation on which the City Council should move quickly. It is a reason to slow down, demand complete information, and hold a fully transparent public process before casting a vote that cannot be easily undone.

I will be present at the July 8th hearing and will be prepared to speak. I respectfully request that each of the above points be addressed publicly and on the record before any vote is taken.

Respectfully,

LilMissGrits

Marietta Resident Ward 3A & Business Owner Ward 4B

Hi Marietta Reddit,

For those who have been following along, I just sent the below to the Marietta City Council regarding the rezoning for a data center on Powers Ferry Place. For transparency (and yes, even feedback), please read the below. Here is the rezoning application. I encourage you to chime in as well- you can find individual email addresses here. If you are for or opposed to a data center, I truly believe we can agree that transparency is important from our City Council. I hope to see more of you on 7/8!

Dear Mayor and City Council,

First and foremost, thank you to those of you who have responded to my initial correspondence. It is noted and appreciated.

I am writing today to bring to your attention a rezoning application — Case Z2026-12, filed May 19, 2026, for 1155 Powers Ferry Place — which I discovered independently by clicking through each and every rezoning application PDF listed on the agenda web page as it does not come up on mariettaga.gov simply by searching "data center." I did not receive notification of this application, and to my knowledge, no proactive community outreach has been made to inform residents. The Planning Commission hearing is scheduled for July 1, 2026, and the City Council hearing for July 8, 2026. Given the limited time remaining and the significance of this proposal, I believe the community deserves an immediate and transparent accounting of what is being considered.

I want to be direct: discovering a second data center rezoning application through my own initiative — in the middle of an active community conversation about the Grind project and municipal transparency — is deeply concerning. The absence of proactive notification is not a technicality. It is a pattern, and it is exactly the pattern residents flagged at the June 10th meeting.

I have read the full application and the City's own Staff Analysis carefully. Several findings in these documents warrant public attention:

1. THE CITY'S OWN STAFF RECOMMENDS DENIAL. The Staff Analysis concludes that this rezoning request "does not align with the City's Comprehensive Plan," noting that data centers operate more like industrial facilities than the commercial and office uses envisioned for the Regional Activity Center (RAC) designation at this parcel. The Council should be prepared to explain publicly if it chooses to override its own staff's recommendation.
2. CRITICAL DATA IS MISSING FROM THE APPLICATION. The Data Appendix lists "Not Provided" for both approximate water usage and estimated waste generated by the proposed development. A floodplain exists on 2.5% of the property, draining to Rottenwood Creek, and the application acknowledges the potential presence of wetlands as "Unknown." The closed-loop cooling system is mentioned but no technical specifications are provided. These are not minor omissions — they are precisely the kind of information that environmental and economic impact studies are designed to surface. The application, as submitted, does not provide the Council or the community with sufficient information to evaluate the project's impact.
3. THE APPLICANT HAS FILED A CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE. Included in the application materials is a preemptive Constitutional Challenge filed by attorney Parks Huff of Sams, Larkin & Huff, LLP, asserting that denial of the rezoning would constitute an unconstitutional taking of property. This is a legal tactic worth acknowledging publicly. Residents deserve to understand that this pressure exists and that it should not substitute for a thorough, merit-based evaluation in the public interest.
4. MARIETTA POWER'S RESPONSE IS SUBSTANTIVELY EMPTY. The Data Appendix section for Marietta Power — Electrical provides only a contact name and phone number, with no detail on what special conditions would be involved in serving an 18-megawatt data center. This is inadequate. Given the ongoing, unresolved community questions about how infrastructure costs from MEAG to MPW would be allocated — and who ultimately bears them — this silence is not acceptable.
5. THE CITY'S OWN STAFF IDENTIFIES THE NEED FOR A DATA CENTER ORDINANCE. The Staff Analysis explicitly states that Marietta's zoning ordinance does not define data centers as a separate use, distinguish between large-scale and small-scale facilities, or include standards specific to their equipment or operations, and recommends the City evaluate this "as part of future zoning code updates." Furthermore, the Staff Analysis notes that Cobb County, the City of Atlanta, Athens-Clarke County, and Clayton County have each adopted moratoriums or new zoning standards to address data center impacts. Marietta's own neighbors have recognized this gap. I would ask the Council directly: why has Marietta not followed suit, and what is the timeline for doing so?
6. THE IDENTITY OF THE APPLICANT HAS BEEN REDACTED FROM PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. The landowner, applicant, and end-user identity are blacked out throughout the publicly available application materials. Residents are being asked to evaluate a major development proposal without knowing who is behind it. This is not a minor procedural matter — it is a fundamental transparency failure. The City should not accept, process, or approve rezoning applications for developments of this scale when the applicant's identity is withheld from the public record. Similarly, the City should adopt a clear policy against engaging with any developer or end-user that requires a non-disclosure agreement that prevents the community from understanding who is proposing to operate in their neighborhood and under what terms.

With the Grind project now withdrawn, this is an opportunity to establish clear, enforceable standards before approving any new data center application — standards that address noise, environmental impact, water usage, infrastructure cost allocation, and grid capacity. Approving Z2026-12 without those standards in place would repeat the structural deficiencies of the Grind process.

I am formally requesting the following:

1. That the Council table Z2026-12 pending the adoption of a data center-specific ordinance that addresses noise standards, environmental impact requirements, water and power usage documentation, and infrastructure cost responsibility.
2. That any future data center application require completed environmental and economic impact studies as a condition of consideration — not as an afterthought.
3. That the Council commit publicly to a timeline for developing a data center ordinance, consistent with the approach taken by Cobb County, Atlanta, Athens-Clarke, and Clayton County.
4. That residents be notified proactively — not through a non-searchable PDF attachment on an agenda page — of pending applications of this scale and nature, with sufficient lead time to participate meaningfully in the process.
5. That the City adopt a formal policy requiring full applicant and end-user disclosure on all rezoning applications, and declining to engage with any developer or operator requiring a non-disclosure agreement that withholds material information from the public.

I remain neither categorically for nor against data center development in Marietta. What I am firmly against is a process that asks residents to accept decisions made without adequate information, without adequate notice, and without adequate standards. The Council has an opportunity to demonstrate that it learned from the Grind situation. I sincerely hope it takes it.

I was unable to attend the Planning Commission hearing on July 1st; however, I plan to attend the City Council hearing on July 8th and would welcome the opportunity to speak.

Respectfully,

LilMissGrit

Marietta Resident Ward 3A & Business Owner Ward 4B

Just did my yearly retention offer check for the business plat and the offer was... much lighter than in past years. 80k points for $30k spend in 90 days. Is this about what everyone else is seeing? Renewal is 7/9/26. Feels like there may be better options out there since I'm also an Amex Delta Reserve holder- That said. Trying to figure out if I should cancel/swap one and if this retention is in line or out to lunch.

I just sent the below email to Marietta City Council. In the interest of transparency, as I have been present in a whole lot of these discussions on Reddit (and had some phenomenal help from some of y'all), I am copy/pasting that email here and welcome productive discussion based in factual reality. Check your tin foil hats at the door and boots are for wearing, not licking.

Dear Council Members,

First and foremost, thank you for extending the unscheduled speaking portion of the June 10th meeting. That was an act of good faith, and it is both noted and appreciated. I also want to thank Councilman Kent for responding to my email, and the full Council for taking the time to read this correspondence.

I have included my prior correspondence with Councilman Kent below, as it provides important context for my position. I emailed a list of questions on Monday, June 8th and received a response on June 9th — a commendably quick turnaround. Unfortunately, upon reading the response, I found that at best 2.5 of my questions were addressed. That experience succinctly captures my core concern.

As evidenced by last night's attendance, a significant portion of the community was not adequately informed about the data center project — and many residents, including myself, were surprised to learn that the Council approved the rezoning over a year ago. I have consistently trusted the City of Marietta to operate with transparency and in the interest of its residents, and until this issue arose, I had no reason to feel otherwise.

I want to be clear: I am neither for nor against the data center at this time. I am a small business owner in the grocery industry with no prior expertise in data center development. What I do have strong views on is government transparency — particularly as it relates to negotiations with corporations and developers whose consultants are experienced at structuring agreements that favor one party over another. Whether that occurred here, I cannot confirm, as I still do not fully understand the nature of the Grind negotiation. That lack of available information is, itself, the most concerning aspect of this situation.

On Transparency and Community Notification

I understand that the rezoning was announced on the City Agenda in PDF format and that multiple meetings were held. However, most Marietta residents — myself included — have full-time jobs and family obligations that do not allow attendance at every council meeting or workday. A PDF attachment on an agenda page is not an accessible form of community notification. Many search engines index PDF content poorly; a straightforward solution would be to publish agenda text directly on the City website in searchable HTML format. More broadly, there should be a well-organized, searchable section of the City website where residents can quickly locate and understand developments that affect them.  Until 6/5/26, searching "data center" on Marietta.gov returned no information on this data center. 

The City's own actions demonstrate that effective outreach is within reach. Notably, a significant effort was made to notify residents that last night's meeting would not include the data center on the agenda — which confirms that the City understands how to use social media to reach residents when it chooses to do so. That same capability was not applied to notify residents of the original rezoning. That inconsistency warrants acknowledgment.

Additionally, during last night's meeting, a resident asked where the SPLOST list could be found. Councilwoman Richardson navigated to the website to demonstrate how accessible the information was — and pulled up the 2022 SPLOST instead. It was also mentioned that content could be found on the City's YouTube channel. Upon checking, the link on the City website directs visitors to a channel last updated 13 years ago rather than the active, regularly updated channel. The video titled "AI-Driven Initiatives: GridLogic" was informative — it outlined a partnership with Georgia Tech — yet when I followed up, no one at Georgia Tech, located 18 miles away, indicated they had been consulted or asked to review this data center proposal. I also found no content about the data center on the YouTube channel, though there is, notably, substantial content about the fact that the data center is not being publicly discussed on other City social media outlets.

On the Substance of the Project

In the absence of publicly available information, I compiled everything I could find regarding the Grind project and consulted four subject matter experts — two of whom, like me, hold MBAs from Georgia Tech. What we found was deeply concerning: the rezoning application documentation was contradictory, incomplete, and generated more questions than it answered. One expert expressed frustration at the lack of public documentation on the negotiations. Another noted that the Council was likely under an NDA — a practice worth reconsidering, as Microsoft, for example, no longer engages with developers requiring NDAs because sustained, long-term project success depends on the city and its residents understanding the full picture.

I also learned more about data center infrastructure than I anticipated. For instance, some data centers bank battery capacity and return power to the grid as a mechanism to reduce consumer rates — a benefit that applies primarily to grids with independent generation capacity, which MPW does not have. I also learned that meaningful grid infrastructure upgrades are not speculative outcomes tied to growth — they are a near-certain prerequisite. Every expert I consulted treated infrastructure upgrades as fact, not possibility. "Growth paying for growth" is not merely an economic philosophy in tension with best practices — in this context, it is a structural financial question that deserves a clear, public answer.

As MPW purchases power from MEAG, and MEAG sets pricing for MPW and its customers, the risk structure is not hypothetical. MEAG apparently understood that risk and imposed a higher-than-standard deposit requirement for this data center. However, that deposit would not meaningfully offset the $7M to $12M per megawatt that standard facilities typically require for grid upgrades. There may be a clear and reasonable answer to how these costs are absorbed without rate increases to MPW customers — but that answer has not been communicated, and no documentation covering the financial agreement has been made publicly available.

On the subject of available technology: it is entirely possible to develop a data center that is environmentally responsible and a genuine economic asset to the community. The issue is that such technology comes at a cost, and many municipalities are simply unaware it exists. A "closed loop cooling system" encompasses a wide range of configurations with meaningfully different environmental outcomes. Backup generators can run on diesel or natural gas and are frequently operated on a "temporary" basis while substations are completed — though, as seen in Louisiana, "temporary" can stretch for years with no defined endpoint. Underground generator placement is one approach to neutralizing noise pollution, though one expert noted that the grading variance on the Grind application would likely preclude that option. The application itself was described by another expert as generic and written by someone in a sales capacity rather than an engineering one — a characterization supported by the absence of enclosures on both the chiller and generator yards. The variance and proposed hill cut also raise legitimate concerns about future landslide risk, groundwater disruption, and consistency with Marietta's own zoning requirements. These are resolvable issues — but resolving them requires that the community understand what the City is receiving in return. That information has not been made available.

On the Economics

News sources reported that Grind would pay between $71M and $100M to the City over 10 years — with no detail on cash flow schedules, performance guarantees, or guardrails of any kind. This is particularly notable given that Grind is a company with fewer than 10 employees that was incorporated on December 21, 2023, and whose CEO, Justin Golshir, was reportedly unable to secure bank financing. Understanding what risk factors led to that determination would be relevant to any public assessment of this deal.

At face value, the reported figures translate to approximately $5.18 to $7.30 generated per square foot per year over the life of the contract — a figure that requires context to evaluate fairly. A consumer-facing business on the Square generates $2.00 to $3.50 per square foot per year in property tax alone, before sales tax, licensing, and other revenue streams- without a time cap. Claiming a tax revenue benefit from this development without transparent discussion of opportunity cost does not provide residents with an accurate picture of the trade-offs involved. There may be compelling reasons why this project represents a strong return for Marietta — but those reasons have not been articulated publicly.

On the Council's Responsibility to Residents

Not requiring economic and environmental impact studies because they are not legally mandated falls short of the Council's responsibility to residents. Legal compliance is the floor, not the ceiling. Two of the experts I consulted noted that municipalities that operate only at the level of legal requirement are viewed as targets by experienced developers — who will typically offer significantly more when asked, but will not voluntarily exceed the minimum. The Council's job is not simply to avoid legal liability. It is to act ethically and to negotiate the best possible outcomes for the City and its residents within the bounds of the law.

I am fully aware that Grind ultimately withdrew from this project due to the proposed per-megawatt upcharge from MPW. In retrospect, that outcome may have been fortunate for the Council, as the available evidence suggests this was not a well-structured deal for the City. I cannot definitively conclude that based on publicly available documentation — and that is precisely the point.

A Path Forward

Marietta has historically been the most transparent municipality I have encountered. I have trusted this Council to act in the best interests of its residents, and that trust has been warranted — until now. If the unintended consequence of this situation is that residents are now closely scrutinizing every Council decision, that outcome is a direct result of an information vacuum. Misinformation thrives in the absence of information, as last night's meeting made clear.

If rebuilding community trust is the Council's priority — and I believe it should be — I would respectfully suggest the following as a starting point:

1. Publish all existing Grind documentation in a searchable, publicly accessible format.
2. Commit to plain-language project summaries for future developments, published on the City website in searchable HTML — not exclusively as PDF attachments.
3. Decline to enter agreements with developers that require NDAs preventing community disclosure.
4. Establish economic and environmental impact studies as a standard requirement for future development projects of this scale, regardless of legal mandate.
5. Correct the broken YouTube channel link on the City website and use all social media to communicate with the community.

This moment is also an opportunity. Marietta is now positioned to set a higher standard for how it approaches future development — one that other cities would be well-served to follow. I remain a resident who believes in this community and in this Council's capacity to earn back the trust that has been placed in it.

Respectfully,

<I put my real name, address, occupation, and contact information here, but that's not for Reddit, eh? Oh and don't worry your pretty head Rosser. I own a business in Ward 2 and a home in Ward 3 and can about guarantee I pay more taxes than you've ever avoided>

Hi Guys,

I figure you're the experts. Our little city was... rather shady in approving a new data center that is going to go slap in the middle of several neighborhoods in our town located in Marietta, Georgia. It was approved without an environmental or health impact study behind closed doors and, well. That rubs me wrong. They also received approval for a large number of variances and this particular city isn't known for issuing those. Additionally the rezoning itself did not follow our guidelines with clear signage, announcements, etc. which. Also fishy.

Here's the application.

Questions-

1. What is the power draw on this thing in terms I can understand?

2. My understanding is that residents electrical bills go up with these data centers- does that mean that the centers themselves aren't paying for their own utilities?

3. Why wouldn't they do an environmental or health impact study?

4. How do I find out if the MEAG study was actually completed?

5. Do closed loop cooling systems actually work? Is it realistic or does that usually end up breaking and being a problem? 7m-20m gallons annually is a lot easier to swallow- even though we have been in 2 year drought restrictions and can't water lawns- but is this how it actually goes in the real world? How reliable are the closed loop systems?

6. The claim that data centers produce zero noise is bogus right? I've been by a few that had a pretty fair amount. Is this one different or is that a lie?

7. What else am I missing? The application feels like a sales pitch and is lacking a lot of numbers.

8. Why did they photoshop a little old lady into the pictures?!

I've been given the opportunity to speak at our next city council meeting for some unknown reason as I am wildly unqualified to speak on this topic. That said- I am pretty good at research. This particular topic is so politically heated that I can't figure out what to believe- but the way the city went about it sure makes me think it's a bad idea. Help?

Hi Gang, I'm trying to get as close to this merlot color as I can on a 100% sateen cotton duvet cover (Without spending the $700 the company pictured wants). I can't quite seem to crack the color- Anyone gotten close? I don't want brown. I don't want red. I don't want Barney. I want this color oh so bad. Just lux, rich, deep wine.