Scottsdale-based Vintage Partners has pulled the plug on a planned data center in Laveen, pivoting instead to a large mixed-use project with room for shops, restaurants and as many as 1,000 homes on a 63-acre site. Early grading and utility work were already underway at the southwest corner of Lower Buckeye Road and Loop 202 when the developer changed course, a move that highlights how new city rules and utility policies are reshaping big-power projects across the Valley.
Developer Pulls The Plug
The shift surfaced March 4. According to Bisnow, Vintage Partners now plans to focus roughly 22 acres of the site on retail, commercial and restaurant uses, with the rest reserved for multifamily housing or industrial development. The original proposal would have been the company’s first data center build in the market, but the new plan is structured as a phased mixed-use rollout instead.
City Rules Changed The Math
New city policies helped tip the scales. A City of Phoenix staff report for Text Amendment Z-TA-2-25-Y added tighter siting, noise and design standards for data centers, including a 150-foot setback for mechanical equipment and a requirement that utilities provide a will-serve letter showing they can meet power demand within two years. The City of Phoenix lays out those specifics in detail.
Power Costs And The SRP Cluster Policy
At the same time, utilities rewrote how big customers lock in service, adding fresh uncertainty for hyperscale projects. Bisnow reports that Salt River Project shifted to a "cluster" interconnection model that groups multiple users and asks them to jointly fund grid upgrades, a change developers say can significantly increase the price of bringing new load online. Taken together, the city and utility moves pushed Vintage Partners to rethink what made sense on the Laveen parcel.
What The New Plan Looks Like
In the reworked concept, commercial, retail and restaurant space would line the north edge of the property along 63rd Avenue, Lower Buckeye Road and Loop 202, with multifamily or industrial uses filling out the remaining acreage. RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture prepared the project narrative, which describes multiple access points, a planned traffic signal at 63rd Avenue and Lower Buckeye, and phased off-site improvements, as reported by AZBEX.
Legal Angle: Proposition 207 Waiver
Vintage Partners also took a legal tack as the rules shifted. The developer reportedly filed a Proposition 207 waiver in late 2025 seeking compensation for the property’s loss in value after Phoenix tightened its data center regulations, although the city asked the company to drop the claim and pursue redevelopment of the site instead, according to the Phoenix Business Journal. Proposition 207, the 2006 voter initiative that allows property owners to seek compensation for certain regulatory takings, is outlined in the state’s 2006 voter pamphlet from the Arizona Secretary of State.
What’s Next
The mixed-use vision still needs a green light. A rezoning and planned unit development application will go before village planning committees and the Phoenix City Council, and any construction will depend on those votes. AZBEX notes that Vintage Partners bought the land from the Arizona Department of Transportation and that the firm has other metro Phoenix projects that could overlap in timing with this effort.
If the plan is approved, the project would mark a major land use shift along the Loop 202 corridor, trading a potential server campus for shops, restaurants and dense housing. For now, the 63-acre site is entering a city review process that will decide what ultimately replaces the scrapped data center plan.
