Eloy and the La Osa Data Center: Why Pinal County Rejected One of Arizona's Largest Proposed Campuses

On the morning of August 26, so many people came to the Pinal County government complex in Florence, Arizona that one room could not hold them. The county opened five overflow rooms across three separate buildings so residents could watch the Board of Supervisors decide the fate of the La Osa data center near Eloy. After hours of public comment, the board voted 4 to 1 against the rezoning the project needed. That vote killed what had been pitched as one of the largest data center campuses in Arizona.

The La Osa fight is a local version of a story now playing out in county boardrooms across the country. A Gallup poll conducted in March 2026 found that about seven in ten Americans oppose an AI data center being built in their local area, with 48 percent strongly opposed. That opposition held across party lines, between 63 and 75 percent among both Republicans and Democrats. This post explains what was proposed south of Eloy, what residents objected to, what a county board actually decides in a fight like this, and where the La Osa project stands now. It reports the situation and the arguments on each side. It does not take a side.

What La Osa Was

The developer behind the project is Vermaland, a Phoenix-based land company. Its original plan covered more than 3,300 acres of desert south of Eloy and called for 59 data center buildings, two on-site natural gas power facilities, and a utility-scale battery storage system. The trade publication DataCenterDynamics reported that Vermaland pitched the campus as a roughly $33 billion investment.

The plan did not stay that large. After a wave of resident opposition through the spring, Vermaland scaled the proposal back by about 80 percent, and the board pushed its decision from a May meeting to August at the developer's request so the revised plan could be reviewed. By the August hearing the project had been cut to 11 buildings of roughly 400,000 square feet each. Vermaland also offered self-imposed limits on water use and a commitment to cover all of the project's energy costs, according to local reporting.

What Residents Objected To

Speakers who opposed the project raised water usage, air quality, noise, wildlife impacts, and effects on property values, according to reporting from KJZZ and other outlets. Some residents said they learned about the project only after several meetings had already passed.

Water and power drew the sharpest questions, which fits the national pattern. In the Gallup survey, half of the people who opposed data centers cited excessive use of resources, with 18 percent each naming water and energy. Malorie Martinez, an organizer with the group Rural Arizona Engagement, framed the grid concern this way at the hearing, as quoted by local reporting: "When Pinal County is at peak energy use, who will take priority when power outages are imminent?" Data centers run around the clock, and large campuses can draw as much electricity as a small city, which is why power supply becomes a central question in desert counties where summer demand already runs high.

The Case Made in Favor

The hearing was not one-sided, and neither was the testimony. Labor and workforce advocates spoke in support of the project, pointing to construction jobs and the tax base a large campus can bring. A representative of the Workforce Arizona Council argued for the economic case at the hearing. Brian Delfs, the Avra Valley Fire District fire chief, spoke in favor, citing benefits he said the development could bring to emergency response. Reporting these arguments alongside the objections is the point. A data center fight is a land-use decision with people on both sides of the microphone.

What a County Board Actually Decides

These fights usually turn on a single technical question: zoning. Large data centers need land that is zoned for that kind of industrial use, and when a parcel is not, the developer has to ask the county to rezone it. That request is what the Pinal County Board of Supervisors voted down, 4 to 1, with Supervisor Stephen Q. Miller casting the lone vote in favor. A "no" on rezoning does not fine or punish anyone. It simply means the land keeps its existing designation and the project cannot proceed as proposed on that site.

That is why so much of the public comment period matters. In most counties, a rezoning vote follows a public hearing, and residents who show up and speak are part of the formal record the board weighs. The overflow rooms in Florence were a sign of how many people wanted that record to include their objection, or their support.

Why Data Centers Keep Coming to Places Like Pinal County

Data centers cluster where three things line up: cheap and available land, access to large amounts of power, and proximity to the networks and metro markets they serve. The desert corridor between Phoenix and Tucson offers wide, inexpensive parcels within reach of a major metro, which is why Arizona has drawn repeated proposals. "Hyperscale," the word attached to the biggest of these campuses, refers to facilities built for the largest cloud and AI operators, measured in hundreds of thousands of square feet and hundreds of megawatts of power draw.

The same features that attract developers, open desert land and room to grow, are what put these projects next to residential subdivisions and onto a strained regional grid. That tension is the heart of the La Osa fight and of the others like it.

Where Things Stand Now

The rezoning was rejected, which ended the La Osa proposal as filed. Vermaland's attorneys said the company has other Arizona projects to pursue, according to local reporting. Opponents, meanwhile, said the vote was a starting point rather than a finish, and called for the county to write clear, county-wide rules for how data centers are reviewed before the next application arrives. Local organizers named Rural Arizona Engagement and Pinal Code Watchers as groups pressing for those rules.

The Bottom Line

The La Osa vote shows what a data center fight actually comes down to. It is a county board deciding whether to rezone a specific piece of desert, with residents on both sides of the room and a strained grid and scarce water in the background. Pinal County said no to this one. The broader question of how fast-growing data centers fit next to the towns near them is still being answered, one hearing at a time.