A developer has filed paperwork to turn two existing buildings in Auburndale into a data center, placing the project squarely inside a stretch of Polk County that local leaders have spent years positioning for research and technology growth. Hillwood Development Company submitted an application for a building permit for what it's calling the Auburndale Technology Center on Nov. 4, with plans to occupy the two buildings already standing at 810 Pace Road.
The site covers 75 acres and sits within the Central Florida Innovation District, according to the Lakeland Ledger, whose reporting forms the basis of what's publicly known about the proposal so far. The district itself spans roughly 3,000 acres carved out of Polk County's 2,000 square miles, per the Central Florida Development Council, and it surrounds Florida Polytechnic University.
A District Built Around Research and Tech
That innovation district leans on Florida Polytechnic University and the SunTrax testing facility as its anchor institutions, the development council notes. City planning documents list the kinds of industries Auburndale hopes to draw into the area: research and development, health technology, information sciences and engineering, advanced manufacturing, and mobility and innovation, according to a City of Auburndale Planning Commission agenda from March 2024.
Those same proposed Innovation District standards list buildings over 200,000 square feet among prohibited uses. The documents also include a provision stating that a lawfully existing building, structure, or parking area may continue operating in the same manner it did before the district's effective date. City code separately describes overlay districts as layering additional development standards on top of whatever a site's underlying base zoning already allows, according to the city's updated land development regulations.
Developers Want to Dodge a Fort Meade-Style Fight
According to the seed reporting, the project's developers hope to avoid the kind of public pushback that met a much larger data center proposed in Fort Meade. That Fort Meade project, a $2.6 billion facility spanning 4.4 million square feet on a 1,300-acre former phosphate mine, drew organized community opposition even after city commissioners there voted unanimously in April to approve a developer agreement, FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported.
Data centers have become a flashpoint elsewhere in Florida too. Nassau County commissioners approved a 12-month moratorium in June on accepting, reviewing, or approving data-center-related applications, according to News4JAX, which examined how power demands and local control questions have shaped the statewide debate over these facilities.
Not Auburndale's Only Industrial Fight
The Pace Road data center isn't the only large project testing Auburndale's appetite for industrial growth near Florida Poly. A separate warehouse proposal near the university — featuring two research-and-development buildings totaling roughly 462,840 square feet, a 499,575-square-foot e-commerce and logistics building, and five commercial outparcels — drew enough concern that Auburndale's Planning Commission initially voted 3-2 to recommend denying its zoning amendment request after an Oct. 3 hearing, according to LkldNow.
The outlet's report notes that Lakeland Commissioner Stephanie Madden argued the truck-oriented uses in that proposal would create significant negative maintenance implications for Pace Road and University Boulevard. After revisions, the Planning Commission ultimately backed the project, and it was scheduled for a first reading before Auburndale's City Commission on Nov. 20, 2023, with a second and final reading set for Dec. 18, 2023, per the same report.
A Growing Corridor Along I-4
Pace Road has already seen one large-scale industrial build-out take shape nearby. A separate development also called Pace Road — described by Element8 Partners as sitting on 75 acres along I-4 between Orlando and Tampa — includes a power commitment meant to support data-center uses. That project calls for four Class A industrial buildings ranging from 220,000 to 270,000 square feet each, built in two phases, with construction on Phase I having begun in 2024.
What remains unclear is how the Hillwood proposal at 810 Pace Road will ultimately fit into Auburndale's broader zoning picture, and whether the city's Innovation District standards will apply to the project in any formal sense. The building-permit filing marks an early procedural step, and there's no public information yet on whether it has been approved or what additional permits might still be required.
