Eagle Mountain's planning commission voted unanimously to recommend rezoning a 41-acre parcel for a possible data center, and almost nobody showed up to fight it. Only two residents spoke during the public hearing on the proposal, even as data center projects have prompted heated debates in Utah and across the country.
The parcel belongs to Reagan Peck, who owns the land adjacent to existing Meta and QTS sites and requested the zoning change, according to KSL.com. Peck said the rezoning does not guarantee that a data center will actually get built on the property, and confirmed there is currently no buyer or builder lined up. Rather, the zoning change would let the property be marketed for data center use if Peck decides to sell, and would set up a development agreement and zoning framework for future marketing.
The Eagle Mountain Planning Commission has now forwarded the proposal to the city council, which will consider it next month, per the same KSL report. Residents will get another chance to weigh in before the council considers it.
A Site Boxed In by Bigger Neighbors
The land sits south of Eagle Mountain, surrounded by open land alongside the existing Meta and QTS data center projects, the station's report notes. Eagle Mountain Economic Development Director Abby Ivory told KSL that the site cannot really be used or developed for much else, a practical reality that helps explain why the rezoning drew so little friction.
City leaders have noted that residents have grown familiar with data center operations and the economic benefits they bring. The city has worked to build public trust by educating residents and coordinating directly with data center operators, according to the same account.
Meta opened a data center in Eagle Mountain in 2018, employing about 1,200 people. QTS Data Centers is expected to complete another Eagle Mountain facility in the coming months, a project projected to bring roughly 2,000 jobs to the area. That QTS campus is itself a planned $6 billion investment, with initial construction involving three buildings, and it reached a construction milestone in April 2026 when its first facility topped out, as reported by the Standard-Examiner.
Meta's Growing Footprint and Community Payouts
In September 2026, the company announced it had pushed its total capital investment in Utah past $3 billion and was supporting the Faraday Energy Storage project, a 150-megawatt facility owned and operated by Lydian Energy, according to Meta Data Centers. That announcement came with $2.55 million in direct community funding, including $600,000 to help the local school district buy three acres for a new elementary school site and $450,000 for the city's Walden Park Observatory, according to Eagle Mountain City. Hoodline previously covered Meta's $3 billion expansion.
City officials have made supportive statements about data center development, and the city has adopted planning policies to facilitate project approvals.
Bigger Players Still Circling Eagle Mountain
The Peck parcel is just the latest piece of a much larger land grab. Google is also linked to a 300-acre parcel in Eagle Mountain. Denver-based developer Tract separately acquired more than 668 acres west of Utah Lake in January 2024 to build a master-planned data center park capable of supporting up to 400 megawatts of power, according to Data Center Dynamics.
Eagle Mountain has made itself an easy landing spot for that kind of investment. The city created a Regional Technology Innovation Overlay Zone offering expedited, administrative site-plan reviews for tech and industrial campus proposals, streamlining what elsewhere can be a drawn-out approval fight.
Water Concerns Ease as Growth Accelerates
Water use, often the flashpoint in data center fights across the arid West, has been defused somewhat by newer cooling technology. QTS instituted a closed-loop cooling system designed to run without ongoing water consumption after an initial fill, mirroring dry-cooling approaches Meta has adopted for its newest facilities.
Eagle Mountain was Utah’s fastest-growing city in 2025, a trend Hoodline examined in its look at Utah's shifting growth map.
Still, two residents did raise concerns at the hearing. Elbamara Perez urged city leaders to move cautiously, while Teresa Edwards asked commissioners to weigh the long-term impact of their decision. Their comments were the extent of public objection before the commission's unanimous vote to send the rezoning to the city council.
