Permit Reveals Some Details of Proposed 2 Million-Square-Foot Brookwood Data Center
A two-million-square-foot data center proposed in Brookwood would be developed by Applied Digital Corporation, a Dallas-based developer of artificial-intelligence infrastructure, public documents show.
The company owns 1,300 acres of land around Brookwood Parkway, according county GIS records, and this massive project would be built on about a tenth of that land. Construction runoff will drain into Hurricane Creek before it flows to Tuscaloosa and the Black Warrior River, they said in a 102-page permit filed with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
The construction stormwater permit, numbered ALR10C8B4, is the most detailed public record yet of a project that has fueled months of speculation and frustration in the Tuscaloosa County town, where residents have pressed local leaders for answers about what is planned for the largely rural land near Brookwood Middle School.
City officials have neither confirmed nor denied that a data center was coming, and the developer had not been publicly named until now.
Who's Behind the Data Center and What Are They Pitching?
The permit identifies the applicant as APLD BHM-01 LLC, with Jason Zhang, Applied Digital's president and co-founder, listed as the responsible official. State records show the Limited Liability Company was formed in April.
Applied Digital designs, builds, and operates large data-center campuses that it leases to major technology companies, and it has not publicly announced an Alabama project, which makes the ADEM filing the first public confirmation of both the developer and the scope of what it intends to build in Brookwood.
And the scope is substantial. The permit describes a roughly two-million-square-foot industrial building with an initial land disturbance of 136.89 acres. Tuscaloosa County GIS records show Applied Digital owns just under 1,300 total acres of land in Brookwood.
At 2 million square feet, the data center would be one of the largest buildings in the county, comparable to the body shop at the nearby Mercedes-Benz U.S. International. It could hold nearly eight Tuscaloosa County High Schools, whose mall-inspired campus is around 260,000 square feet.
The application was received on June 18, returned for corrections several times and approved effective July 20. It anticipates construction beginning almost immediately and finishing by the end of 2028. The Birmingham engineering firm Kimley-Horn prepared the plans.
A Familiar Playbook of Secrecy
The application itself never uses the words "data center." It is filed under the generic name "Brookwood, AL Industrial," and the phrase "Brookwood, AL Data Center" appears only in engineering appendices attached to the filing.
The secrecy around the project is nothing new for Applied Digital.
Before the company broke ground on a $3.6 billion campus in Louisiana earlier this year, it identified the location only as a "strategic southern U.S. market," disclosing the site in Rapides Parish months later at an economic-development event where Zhang appeared alongside Governor Jeff Landry.
In June, Applied Digital announced a fifth "AI Factory" campus in an undisclosed "new southern state," but has not publicly confirmed that means a build on their property in Brookwood.
“We are deliberate about where we build,” Applied Digital CEO Wes Cummins said in that announcement. “We look for communities where this kind of investment genuinely matters — where the jobs, the tax base, and the long-term economic activity have real impact. We have built a track record of being good partners to those communities, and we take that responsibility seriously. That track record is part of how we earn the right to keep building.”
After the publication of this article, Applied Digital replied to a request for comment from the Thread.
"Applied Digital continually evaluates potential sites in many locations," said Nick Phillips, Applied Digital's Executive Vice President of External Affairs. "No decision has yet been made whether or not to proceed with a project at that particular location."
The Mayor's Case for Growth
Brookwood Mayor Joe Barger has recently made an extensive public case for data center projects while declining to answer questions about them.
Barger agreed on July 1 to answer written questions from the Thread about the data center. On July 13, he said he would respond after returning from a family vacation. He has ignored multiple emails and text messages seeking comment in the weeks since.
At a recent Brookwood City Council meeting, though, Barger acknowledged that some of the projects proposed along the parkway "have been data centers." He has also maintained that nothing has been finalized.
Still, Barger told those at the meeting that bringing a new industrial tenant to Brookwood would be a victory.
"This type of project has a large ripple effect throughout the city and provides meaningful revenues that will allow us to make generational improvements to our city and to the lives of our residents," Barger said.
He said he has researched and visited data centers and attempted to dispel concerns about power usage, water consumption, noise generation, and the site's proximity to Brookwood Middle School, which the mayor said may have to be relocated.
"There is zero risk to our children; otherwise, these projects would not even be discussed," Barger said. "But the future development of our industrial corridor, as we have planned and hoped for so many years, does necessitate a conversation with the county board that has not happened yet surrounding the now outdated and overcrowded Brookwood Middle School. Plans will be discussed to work together about that issue and to move the school."
Barger also said the development could bring "upwards of 2,000 jobs and workers" during construction and "100 or more high-paying jobs" once operating.
He rejected the idea that the project had advanced in secret, citing mailed notices to adjoining landowners and signs posted on the property, even as he acknowledged residents' frustration with nondisclosure agreements surrounding the project.
The Creekkeeper's Perspective
The ADEM permit lists many basins and outfalls that will drain construction runoff into Hurricane Creek and its tributaries, and ADEM designated the site a "priority construction site" discharging to a priority watershed.
John Wathen, the longtime Hurricane Creekkeeper who has fought pollution in the watershed for decades, said the permit shows the data center project is further along than officials have acknowledged.
But thanks to Wathen and others, Hurricane Creek is federally protected, and anyone looking to build along it and disturb the Creek must do so in a way that does not add pollution or too much turbidity to the waterway, which eventually flows into the Black Warrior River here in Tuscaloosa.
There is a Total Maximum Daily Load of pollutants allowed to enter a waterbody, and no new construction or industry can exceed it.
Wathen flew over the property this weekend with an environmental watchdog group called SouthWings, and was measured as he gauged the site's suitability for a project like this.
"If they're going to build one, that's not a bad location for it, with the exception of the middle school," he said. "But not without consultation, and not behind closed doors like this. It should be transparent. Whatever they're going to do, it has to be done with transparency. They can't hide it."
He also questioned why Applied Digital would acquire nearly 1,300 acres only to disturb 137.
"This is only to get their foot in the door," he said. "Why would they buy all that property if they didn't intend to continue expanding this permit?"
For more coverage of this project and other industrial development in West Alabama, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.
Mayor Joe Barger did not respond to multiple requests for comment about this project before the publication of this report. A statement from Applied Digital was provided on Wednesday and has been added above.
UPDATE / CORRECTION: The original version of this draft said the data center was on the agenda of an upcoming Brookwood Planning & Zoning Commission Meeting - an Applied Digital spokesperson reached out after publication and said they do NOT have any business before that body next Tuesday.
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