On May 18, 2026, the Claremore City Council held an extended public hearing and vote on a proposed multi-phase data center campus planned for the city’s existing industrial park. After a lengthy public comment period, the council’s own discussion offered a clear and detailed picture of the deal’s structure, and why several members ultimately supported it. 

Here are some of the key takeaways.

A Rare, Self-Funded Revenue Opportunity

The city’s finance and administrative leadership were direct about a structural reality facing Oklahoma municipalities – cities in the state cannot collect property tax revenue. Because of that, officials explained, the real upside of a project like this comes through electricity sales and the sales tax applied to industrial power use. Once the project reaches full operating capacity, city administration projects roughly $15 to $16 million per year in new revenue, comparable to the entirety of the city’s current annual sales tax collections. Importantly, this comes without any increase to residential electric or water rates, since the agreement requires the developer to cover 100% of infrastructure upgrade costs.

Direct Investment Beyond the Tax Structure

Independent of the incentive framework, the development agreement includes a $250,000 annual community payment for the life of the project, plus two $2.5 million deposits earmarked for local quality-of-life initiatives, including the city’s parks master plan. City leadership emphasized these are dollars the city otherwise rarely has flexibility to spend, given how much of its budget is tied up in core infrastructure needs.

A Carefully Negotiated Incentive Structure, Not a Giveaway

Several council members walked through the mechanics of the proposed Tax Incentive District (TID) in detail, clarifying that it is fundamentally different from a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) in that it is a negotiated, in-lieu-of-property-tax arrangement that required unanimous sign-off from all eight affected taxing entities, including the local school district, county, and emergency services boards, each acting through their own public governing process. Council members were clear that this wasn’t something imposed on those entities, but an agreement those bodies chose to enter into after evaluating their own interests. Unlike a TIF, where a taxing entity typically waits years for a redirected revenue stream to repay infrastructure debt the city or authority had to take on, this structure asks nothing of the taxing entities upfront. Beale funds all required infrastructure directly, meaning schools, the county, and emergency services take on no financing risk or cost while still receiving a guaranteed negotiated payment on land that currently generates little to no tax revenue at all.

Addressing Community Concerns with Data, Not Assumptions

Council discussion pushed back on several widely circulated concerns. On water use, officials noted the facility’s air-cooled design would use an amount of water comparable to a couple of fast-food restaurants daily, far less than commonly assumed. On environmental and health concerns, several members pointed to over a decade of operating history at comparable data center facilities in the Tulsa region without documented adverse local health effects. On property values, officials cited regional reporting suggesting nearby property values have trended upward near existing data center developments, not downward. On power generation, city leadership confirmed there is no on-site gas or other generation planned or permitted under the agreement – all power is supplied through the existing utility infrastructure, with Beale funding all necessary substation and transmission upgrades.

Workforce and Long-Term Community Ties

Several building trade representatives and apprentices spoke about the project’s potential to keep skilled local workers employed close to home rather than traveling out of state for work, citing nearly two decades of experience partnering with data center construction projects in the region and the training pipelines these projects can support for the next generation of the local workforce.

A Deliberate, Multi-Year Process

Council members and city administration were clear that this proposal was the product of roughly two years of negotiation, review, and refinement, involving city planning, engineering, legal counsel, and all affected taxing jurisdictions, structured specifically to protect ratepayers and taxpayers from new costs while capturing new revenue for community priorities.

A Robust Public Debate

As with many large infrastructure and development proposals, the project drew a wide range of community reactions. The public hearing portion of the meeting included several hours of resident comments on both sides, with some speakers raising questions about environmental impact, property values, and the pace and transparency of the process. Council members acknowledged these concerns directly and described the final agreement’s terms, including infrastructure funding requirements and rate protections, as a direct response to public input gathered over the course of the process.

Following discussion, the council approved both the Tax Incentive District ordinance and the associated development agreement by a 6–3 vote, along with a series of related utility agreements needed to support the project’s power supply.

On January 6, 2026, the Marana Town Council held public hearings and votes on two related rezoning applications for a proposed 600-acre data center campus (Luckett Road North and Luckett Road South), representing what was described as the largest private capital investment in Southern Arizona’s history at roughly $5 billion. Both items ultimately passed by a 6-0 vote. 

Here are the key takeaways from the discussion.

A Xero-Local-Incentive Deal

Unlike many large economic development projects, town staff and outside speakers repeatedly emphasized that this project requested no local incentives at all. Marana’s own job-creation incentive ordinance specifically excludes data centers from eligibility, and the applicant’s independent economic analysis was built without factoring in any town-level incentive offset. Instead, Beale is fully funding all required infrastructure, including an estimated $20 million road extension, $15-20 million potable water extension, $15-20 million wastewater extension, and a multimillion-dollar contribution toward a regional drainage channel, all of which become town-owned infrastructure once complete.

Substantial Projected Tax Revenue

An independent third-party economic analysis presented at the meeting projected $407 million in combined state, county, and local tax revenue over the first ten years of just the project’s first phase, including $145 million directly to the Town of Marana, roughly $25 million to the Marana school district, and over $15 million to the local fire district. Speakers translated these figures into concrete terms – the fire district noted that $1.5 million per year, a fraction of its projected share, would be enough to fully staff an entire new fire station.

Jobs and Workforce Commitments

The project is projected to generate approximately 4,200 construction jobs over the first phase (2026-2030) and 400 permanent on-site jobs (engineering, technical operations, and security roles). Multiple building trades unions – including electricians, ironworkers, carpenters, laborers, and painters – spoke in strong support of the project. They emphasized that current work often requires two-plus hour commutes each way to the Phoenix area or travel out of state, away from their families, and that a local project of this scale would let them work and build careers close to home. Beale representatives also described early partnerships with Pima Community College and the Marana Unified School District to build local training pipelines.

Addressing Water and Cooling Concerns Directly

The project is designed as a fully air-cooled, closed-loop system that will not use potable water for cooling. Beale stated this results in a 98% reduction in water use across the 600 acres compared to its current agricultural use (roughly 2,000 acre-feet/year today down to about 40 acre-feet/year), and confirmed they are not requesting any variance from Marana’s data center ordinance, which already prohibits use of the town’s potable water for cooling. Town staff confirmed this ordinance, adopted roughly a year prior partly at the recommendation of another Arizona municipality (Chandler), was the first of its kind in the state adopted proactively, before any data center project was proposed.

Utility Assurances on Rate Impacts

Representatives from both regional utilities, Trico Electric Cooperative and Tucson Electric Power (TEP), addressed the frequently raised concern that the project would raise electricity rates for existing residential customers. Both stated unequivocally that the data center’s infrastructure costs (substations and transmission lines) are being borne entirely by Beale, with financial guarantees such as letters of credit and bonds in place before construction begins. They also noted that a scheduled 2026 rate increase already implemented was based on 2022-2023 cost data unrelated to the data center. Both utilities’ representatives stated the additional stable revenue from the project could help push future base rate increases further out for existing customers, since fixed infrastructure costs would be spread across a larger sales base.

A Robust Public Debate

The meeting drew a large and vocal mix of supporters and opponents. Supporters included the Marana Chamber of Commerce, the school district superintendent, the Arizona Commerce Authority, the University of Arizona’s research leadership, the Arizona Technology Council, and numerous building trades members and local business owners. Opponents raised concerns including the indirect water footprint of generating the power needed to run the facility, the pace of new data center development regionally, questions about generator emissions and noise near the adjacent veterans cemetery, requests for a public referendum rather than a council vote, and broader questions about state-level tax incentive policy for data centers generally. 

Council members and staff acknowledged these concerns as valid questions worth raising, while noting that the year-plus, proactive ordinance-drafting process the town had undertaken specifically to get ahead of these issues before any project was proposed.

Following discussion, both the Luckett Road North and Luckett Road South rezoning ordinances passed unanimously, 6-0, with one council member (a property owner on the south parcel) recused from the vote entirely.