Don’t have many details - but seeing news that Beacon Partners wants to build a 13 MW data center in SE Raleigh.
Personally I don’t understand why these need to be near cities.
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From an I.T. perspective, some likley reasons for building these with close proximity to large metro areas: Acess to a larger pool of skilled labor; Quicker access to hardware vendors and repair servies which helps keep downtime to an absolute minimum, which is highly critical for hosting companies; Cites/metro areas typically offer more robust electrical grids and major internet cables and high-speed data routes (backbones) usually converge around metro areas. Hope this helps some.
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For exactly the same reason why AT&T built this windowless box on a full block of McDowell Street – telephone-switch central offices like that one were the original “data centers.” Companies want their data in the cloud, but still near their offices or their customers’ devices (“edge computing”).
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Yeah this doesn’t need to be 3 miles from downtown. I get that they want to have easy access to everything, but they’re not a big employer and have too many drawbacks.
There’s almost nowhere in the city of Raleigh where this makes sense. They add zero to the community and have plenty of red flags. There’s plenty of space out in Zebulon where they could still tap into the Raleigh workforce without being surrounded by people’s houses.
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The site is east of 40 on Jones Sausage Rd. While it’s next to Raleigh, it’s currently NOT in the city limits. Of course it’s the working class that’s going to get screwed if this happens because it’s basically across the street from a mobile home park.
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Hey, unlike you, most of us are still working too! 
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Na keep Zebulon outta this! lol move them to Nashville NC!
Anyone know if this rezoning outcome is on Polymarket or Kalshi?
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We were talking about you last night. You ever coming to a meetup again?
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Yes, I should have time in the fall to attend a meetup! Would be great to see everyone.
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On the one hand, this is only a little closer to downtown than another existing data center near North Hills on Departure Dr. And, well, data centers are pretty standard infrastructure in the last decade.
On the other hand, I genuinely appreciate that data center drama is the growing representation of public backlash against our society pouring vast amounts of money into irresponsible tech while food becomes unaffordable for many. A real social movement is a valuable thing.
So, I wouldn’t interfere with anyone protesting this, but I’m also not gonna burn any goodwill toward our city leaders if it goes through.
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I think people need to realize that data centers have existed for decades. This size (13 MW) is on the size of those that have been built normally for years without question that powers everything people like on the internet. This is not hyperscale data center which are in the hundreds of megawatts or even gigawatts. Opposing this just because it’s the big scary “data center” word is just frankly stupid. Nuance is needed for projects just like other development projects and shouldn’t be opposed just like when Livable Raleigh opposes a rezoning because it is zoned to 20 stories when that doesn’t necessarily mean that the building will even be built to 20 stories. Except this time you know exactly how big it will be (13 MW which isn’t that big). Opposing any data center is just the new wave NIMBYs. Of course, if this was 1 GW data center I would be opposed given the closeness to downtown, but it’s not.
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I am waiting on someone to build a 1.21 Gigawatts data center.
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There are already data centers in Raleigh and Garner.