Bessemer, Ala. — City officials in Bessemer have taken another step toward allowing construction of one of the largest data centers in the country, voting this week to recommend zoning changes that would clear the way for the controversial project.
The Bessemer Planning and Zoning Commission voted Tuesday to recommend amending city law to allow data centers in areas zoned for light industrial use and to rezone a 700-acre parcel from agricultural to light industrial. The move comes despite overwhelming opposition from residents, who packed the meeting to voice concerns about the project’s environmental and community impacts.
The proposed data center, known as Project Marvel or the Bessemer Hyperscale Data Center, would include 18 buildings each larger than a Walmart Supercenter, covering about 700 acres and costing an estimated $14.5 billion. If approved by the Bessemer City Council, the project would be among the largest of its kind in the United States.
At full buildout, the facility is projected to consume around 1,200 megawatts of electricity—about 10.5 million megawatt hours per year—which is more than 90 times the annual energy use of all residences in Bessemer and over 10 times that of nearby Birmingham The project’s energy demands are driven by the nature of hyperscale data centers, which are engineered for massive, scalable workloads and are increasingly used for artificial intelligence, cloud computing and large-scale internet services.
While the developer, Logistics Land Investments LLC, has not publicly detailed the intended use of the data center, the scale of its energy and water consumption suggests it is designed for high-capacity computing, which is typically associated with AI and cloud infrastructure. There are few other types of data centers that would require this level of electricity; most large-scale data centers in the U.S. are built for hyperscale cloud or AI workloads.
The project’s environmental footprint has drawn sharp criticism. Scientists warn that its construction and operation could threaten local waterways and a newly discovered fish species, the Birmingham darter. Residents have also expressed frustration over the lack of transparency, noting that city officials have signed non-disclosure agreements with the developer, limiting public access to information about the project.
The zoning recommendation now goes to the Bessemer City Council for final approval. If passed, the project would move forward, potentially reshaping the region’s landscape and energy demands for decades to come.