Already known for a thriving, made-from-scratch town tied to Georgia’s TV and film industry, Fayetteville will also lay claim to the world’s largest data center of its type, in an effort to meet metro Atlanta’s surging demand for reliable power and fiber connectivity, officials announced today.

Kansas-based Quality Technology Services (QTS) plans to develop the world’s largest multi-tenant data center campus across 615 acres of current farmland just west of downtown Fayetteville to expand its metro Atlanta footprint, according to officials with CBRE, which brokered the deal.

More than three times the size of Piedmont Park, the land in question is roughly 25 miles south of downtown Atlanta, northeast of Peachtree City. It’s located roughly at the northwest corner of Ga. Highway 54 and Veterans Parkway, a rep tells Urbanize Atlanta.

The Fayette County Development Authority sold the property to QTS for just shy of $154 million—or roughly $250,000 per acre, a fetch described as “eye-popping” by local rate standards.

A closer look at the 615 acres in question, in relation to downtown Fayetteville and Peachtree City. Google Maps

CBRE officials described the transaction as one of metro Atlanta’s largest land deals inked this year.

Megan Baker, Fayette County Development Authority president, said the complex deal involved “multiple landowners and option holders, annexation and re-zoning, massive utility improvements, and tax incentives” in a press release today.   

CBRE reports that Atlanta is currently home to 249.5 megawatts of data center capacity, far less than some rival metros. But Atlanta’s growth of nearly 72 megawatts since the first half of 2021 is among the strongest in the country, and the metro’s current stock of vacant space is just 3.6 percent.

CBRE

Data Center Dynamics reports QTS could spend $1 billion developing the Fayetteville site, which could reportedly span 1.5 million square feet and generate another 250 megawatts of data center capacity.  

Closer to the heart of the city, QTS is already expanding the largest data center in the Southeast by 36 more acres located along West Marietta Street and a future Atlanta BeltLine spur. Dubbed “Project Granite,” the first phase of that development includes 1.15 million square feet—the bulk of it two data centers, plus roughly 250,000 square feet of offices.

The company also operates a 385,000-square-foot facility in the Gwinnett County city of Suwanee, northeast of Atlanta.

The Fayetteville site in the context of south metro Atlanta. Google Maps

“Georgia continues to thrive as a premiere global data center market,” Tim Huffman, executive vice president at CBRE in Atlanta, noted in today’s announcement. “One of the key drivers for metro Atlanta is readily available access to reliable power and fiber connectivity [plus] short infrastructure-delivery lead times and low costs.”

• South of Atlanta, massive swath of land sells for 1,000+ more homes (Urbanize Atlanta)