Tract is planning another data center campus in Phoenix, Arizona.
First reported by BizJournal, Tract is again looking to develop a large data center campus in the Buckeye area of Maricopa County.
The company is planning to build out a multiphased, 1,700-acre complex in Buckeye just south of Interstate 10, at a site that was previously set up for a master-planned residential community called Cipriani.
The City of Buckeye City Council recently terminated the Cipriani master plan and gave approval to plans for the Buckeye Tech Corridor. Buckeye's planning commission recommended approval for the zoning change at its February meeting. The land is bounded by Yuma Road and Southern Avenue to the north and south and by Johnson Road and 323rd Avenue to the east and west.
Further specifications of the campus aren’t clear at this point. Reports suggest Tract could invest up to $20 billion in the project.
The Cipriani community would have included 9,700 homes, 190 acres of commercial area, 276 acres of open space, five schools, five fire stations, and one police station. The land was originally purchased for development between 2003 and 2006 and gained approval for development in 2008. Construction work never took place, and Arizona Land Consulting purchased the Cipriani site in 2022.
This is the second project Tract has attempted in Buckeye. Last year Tract filed to develop a massive campus in Buckeye nearby to the newly proposed site. However, the company withdrew the application from Maricopa County’s planning and development queue earlier this year after opposition from local residents and officials.
Known as Project Range, the development was set to span nearly 30 buildings totaling 5.6 million square feet on land north and south of Yuma Road between Jackrabbit Trail and Perryville Road. Buildings would range from 149,000 square feet to 260,000 square feet each. Work on the project was set to start in 2025 and continue over the next 15 to 18 years.
The project received pushback from both Goodyear and Buckeye staff because of its "incompatibility" with the designated land uses for the site along with concerns around building heights and noise. The site was designated for residential uses and is surrounded by neighborhoods.
However, Tract CEO Grant van Rooyen told DCD the company had other sites in the Phoenix area that it is moving forward with instead.
News of Tract surfaced in 2022 – at the time, it had reportedly identified 40,000 acres of potential investment sites to develop master-planned data center parks on which other companies can develop facilities.
The company officially launched last year with plans for a 2GW, 2,200-acre development in Reno, Nevada. The company has since broken ground on the site.
As well as Reno, the company has announced plans for a 668-acre campus in Eagle Mountain, Utah, and a large site outside Richmond, Virginia.
Tract says it owns or is under contract on more than 20,000 acres across the United States, which are in various stages of rezoning, design, or horizontal construction.
DCD spoke to Tract CEO van Rooyen in the latest issue of DCD>Magazine. Read it for free today.
