Applied Digital held its first Brookwood town hall Thursday night, giving residents a chance to press the company directly about its planned $3.2 billion Delta Forge 2 data center campus — including why the site sits only about eight-tenths of a mile from Brookwood Middle School. The meeting drew residents with pointed questions about water use, noise, power costs and environmental impacts tied to the sprawling project off Brookwood Parkway.
According to WBMA, company representatives used the gathering to explain artificial intelligence basics and walk residents through how the proposed facility would actually operate day to day. Nick Phillips, speaking for Applied Digital, said the company wants to hear directly from Brookwood residents as the project moves forward, the station reported. Applied Digital has already submitted permit applications to the city, according to the same report, and confirmed that Delta Forge 2 will be built in Brookwood, according to WBRC.
Water, Noise and the Middle School Question
The issues residents raised most often, per WBMA's account of the meeting, centered on the data center's effect on area infrastructure, water usage, power rates, environmental issues and the project's proximity to the middle school — concerns that echo what the Tuscaloosa Thread had already documented ahead of the meeting. Applied Digital told residents the Delta Forge 2 campus will rely on a closed-loop cooling system that receives a one-time water fill and then recirculates that same water for years rather than drawing continuously from local supplies, WBMA reported. The company also noted that its backup generators are subject to state and federal regulations governing how often they can run and what emissions they produce.
Those assurances stand in some tension with how Applied Digital has described its own cooling technology elsewhere. A company press release announcing a 210-megawatt lease at the site described the campus as integrating “Applied Digital's proprietary waterless cooling technology,” according to Applied Digital's investor relations site — a framing that differs from the closed-loop, one-time-fill system described to residents at the town hall.
Jobs, Tax Revenue and the Scale of the Project
Delta Forge 2 is planned to span roughly 1.26 million square feet across 160 acres of a nearly 1,300-acre site, with the land sitting east of Brookwood Middle School and west of Lear Corp.'s Tuscaloosa plant, according to the Tuscaloosa News. Per previous reporting cited by WBMA, the project is expected to create more than 1,000 construction jobs and more than 100 permanent positions once operational. WBRC has reported that construction employment is projected to peak at more than 1,000 workers, with the completed campus supporting over 100 full-time employees onsite.
The financial commitments attached to the project are substantial. Applied Digital has said it will provide $270 million in community benefits payments to the Tuscaloosa County Economic Development Authority over 20 years, the broadcaster reported, and overall community benefit payments and tax revenue are projected to exceed $440 million over two decades, according to WVTM 13. Education tax benefits over the same period have been estimated at about $131.5 million, per the same WBRC report, though overall investment figures have varied slightly across coverage, with some accounts describing the project as representing more than $3.2 billion once the company's tenant commitment is included.
Residents Weigh In After the Meeting
Reactions in the room were mixed but leaned toward cautious relief. Joe Barger called the project a major opportunity for Brookwood, according to WBMA's account of the town hall. Samantha Carter, who attended with concerns specifically about Brookwood Middle School and the development benefits that have been promised to the community, said she was pleased with how Applied Digital responded to those worries. She told the station she felt much better and cautiously optimistic walking out of the meeting than she had going in.
Applied Digital said it expects to hold additional town halls and community meetings as Delta Forge 2 moves through the approval process, according to the company's statement to WBMA. The project is part of a broader wave of data center development across Alabama, where at least 24 such facilities across 12 counties now represent more than $63 billion in investment, though key details on power, water use and jobs for many of those projects remain largely undisclosed, according to AL.com. Delta Forge 2 is one of at least three data center projects tied to the Brookwood corridor specifically, the Tuscaloosa Thread has reported, with New York developer Youngwoo & Associates also holding several hundred acres in the area.
The Bigger Picture on Power Demand
Statewide, the stakes of this buildout extend well beyond Brookwood. An analysis found that a dozen proposed Alabama data center developments would, at full capacity, consume more energy than all homes in the state combined, according to Inside Climate News. That same reporting noted that Alabama's SB 270 now requires the state's Public Service Commission to weigh whether utility contracts with data center developers serve the public interest and to ensure incremental costs are properly recovered. For comparison, the proposed Project Marvel campus in Bessemer is projected to use 90 times more energy than all Bessemer residences combined, while backers of the proposed Project Red Clay have sought 1,500 megawatts of capacity and up to 100,000 gallons of water per day — figures that help explain why Brookwood residents pushed so hard for specifics at Thursday's meeting.
