In the wake of data center restrictions enacted across the state in recent years, Lake County commissioners are moving toward creating their own temporary pause on the controversial facilities.
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According to Commissioner Anthony Sabatini, there have been 12 applications filed in Florida for “large data centers” in the last year and the expectation is that there are more to come.
Given the rise in data centers in Central Florida and across the country, often due to computing demands required by the emergence of artificial intelligence, Sabatini proposed a one-year moratorium to block their development in Lake County for now, according to a report in GrowthSpotter. Critics worry about the amount of water and electricity those facilities demand.
Sabatini acknowledged at a Tuesday commission meeting that there are no existing data centers or pending data center applications in Lake County.
“I’m not asking for an outright ban, I think we start with a moratorium and take a look at this,” he said during Tuesday’s county commission meeting. “As we get closer to October 1, 2027, when [Senate Bill 180] expires, then we can talk about what we really want to do with these centers.”
Passed with little debate at the end of the 2025 Legislative Session, Senate Bill 180 was initially pitched as a way to ease the rebuilding of structures damaged by multiple hurricanes in 2024, but is now being read to thwart all manner of development controls.
In order to avoid violating SB 180 with an outright data center ban, Sabatini proposed the moratorium as a temporary step until the bill expires.
Pointing to other Florida counties — Citrus, Nassau and Pasco counties, among others — that have already imposed some form of moratorium, Sabatini said data centers can be “serious commitments to utilities and land use” and argued a moratorium constitutes a “very common sense position.”
While Commissioner Kirby Smith quibbled with the word ‘moratorium’ and instead opted to call it a ‘pause’ until the board identifies the correct language to move forward, he agreed with Sabatini and suggested adding a few requirements.
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“One I would like to see is that we mandate they have to use reclaimed water, plain and simple,” Smith said. “If they don’t use reclaimed water, then it would go against the code anyway.”
Commissioners agreed to have county staff draft a data center moratorium ordinance for future consideration. A vote is likely during the upcoming July 14 Board of County Commissioners meeting. Sabatini said the vote is expected to be unanimous.
“I’m all in favor of us saying, from our standpoint in Lake County, that until we have more information and understand this better and know exactly how this could affect the environment, our residents, our quality of life, all of those issues we’re concerned about, we definitely take a pause on this and do research,” Commission Chair Leslie Campione said.
While Lake County discusses a potential pause, in neighboring Orange County, Denver, Colorado-based CoreSite is proposing a second data center building at its Orlando campus near John Young Parkway and State Road 528.
According to site plans filed with the South Florida Water Management District last month, the project would add a new data center building and related infrastructure within the existing CoreSite property at 9701 S. John Young Parkway, near the Beachline Expressway interchange.
The site plans, prepared by New Jersey-based Langan Engineering and Environmental Services, show the proposed building would add approximately 76,280 square feet in a two-story structure adjacent to the existing facility, which contains more than 129,000 square feet of data center space and serves enterprise and cloud customers.
CoreSite, an American Tower subsidiary, has been in business since 2001 and the Orlando campus has been CoreSite branded since 2022. It was originally developed by Datasite, operating since 1984.
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at [email protected] or 407-754-4980. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook and LinkedIn.
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