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.