Nearly 100 people showed up Tuesday night to square off with the developer behind the Tulsa area’s latest data center proposal. Some residents came armed with protest signs when they walked into the open house at Coweta’s City Hall.
Project Atlas is a data center campus planned for 16192 Highway 51B, just south of Coweta and east of Highway 72. The developer — Beale Infrastructure — is also behind another data center planned for Owasso.
The City of Coweta sold 200 acres to Beale for the project, which the developer says will employ around 35 people during early operations. PSO will power the center, and Beale plans to source water from the Arkansas and Verdigris rivers.
“The noise, the traffic, the disturbance of electricity and water. We have problems with that anyway without them being there,” said Anne Cowles, a Coweta resident since 1976.
Cowles told the Flyer her family home is just a quarter mile away from the site of the planned data center. It’s been passed down from generations, and all of her family members are against the project.
Just a few days ago, Kathy Foster and Cathie Hogate started collecting signatures from other Coweta residents opposed to Project Atlas. By the start of Tuesday’s meeting, Foster said they had 260 signatures. That number has nearly doubled since the meeting.
Hogate is worried about how the data center will directly impact residents in the area.
“More than likely we are going to get high (electric) rates,” Hogate said. “Plus it has a noise effect, which affects people, and these things put out a tremendous amount of light in the area.”
Tony Bukart, senior vice president of public policy and affairs for Beale Infrastructure, says concerns about water usage and energy rates are common but unnecessary. He says the center will not overtake people’s water resources and won’t increase their energy costs.
“We are not looking to go to places that don’t have the energy that (can) serve us,” Bukart told the Flyer.
Bukart says Tuesday’s open house was meant to inform people about the project but also learn about residents’ concerns. “I’d rather know that now so we can kick off this process of public engagement and community development at the beginning of a project rather than waiting six months for this thing to be (bigger) than it is,” Burkart said.
Next up for Project Atlas is a series of rezoning meetings before the Coweta Planning Commission and the Coweta City Council. The first meeting is Nov. 17 and the second is Dec. 1, both at 6 p.m. The December meeting is expected to deliver the final approval, with construction planned for spring or summer of 2026.
Beale’s other project — a $1 billion, 500-acre data center called Project Clydesdale — is set to break ground Thursday near East 76th Street North and North Sheridan Road in Owasso. Tulsa County Commissioners unanimously gave the final project approval in September.
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