Developer Pitches 2.4M SF Georgia Data Center Campus

Atlas Development has filed plans to build a 2.4M SF data center campus near Rome, Georgia, the fifth major project the data center newcomer has proposed in the state so far this year. 

Atlas’s latest proposed project would be located in the Floyd County community of Coosa, around 70 miles northwest of Atlanta near the Alabama border.

Referred to as Project Gracie in filings with state officials, the campus would entail 2.4M SF of data center space across seven buildings, with a target completion date of December 2032. The project is slated for 200 undeveloped acres next to a middle school, according to the Rome News-Tribune.  

Attorneys for Atlas presented its plans before the Rome-Floyd Planning Commission last week, with commissioners voting 4-to-3 to recommend approval of the rezoning needed for the project to move forward. That rezoning still requires approval by the Floyd County Board of Commissioners, which will consider the project at a hearing later this month. 

Based in Carrollton, Georgia, Atlas Development is a newcomer in the industry, with no track record of executing data center projects of any size. Yet Project Gracie marks the fifth large-scale data center project the firm has applied to build in Georgia since the start of the year and the second it has pitched in Floyd County. 

In January, Atlas submitted initial filings for Project Sassy, a data center campus on 178 acres in Rome. The company hasn't disclosed additional details about the Rome project, though Atlas has applied to rezone the property to allow data centers and hopes to add 15 more acres to the site. 

That same month, Atlas submitted plans for Project Sail, a data center campus of historic proportions in Coweta County. The proposed 13-building, 4.9M SF complex on nearly 800 acres has a projected development cost as high as $17B and is being developed with a still-unidentified partner, Atlas owner Jonathon Ward told Bisnow at the time. 

In February, the firm submitted a proposal for Project Springbank, slated to include over 2M SF of data center space across six buildings in Bartow County. And last month, Atlas pitched plans for a 428-acre data center campus 30 miles west of Atlanta near Villa Rica. 

The Atlas projects join a torrent of new data center development planned for the Peach State, with the Atlanta market emerging as the national leader in data center demand. Atlanta had 2,159 megawatts under construction at the end of last year, and users of data centers leased a net of 705.8 megawatts, surpassing Northern Virginia in absorption for the first time, according to CBRE. Its inventory more than tripled between 2023 and 2024.

Last month, Trammell Crow Co. filed an application to build an 8.1M SF data center campus at White Oak Technology Park near Augusta. It is the second proposal in as many weeks to add a project of that size, with an unnamed developer declaring its intention to build a $19B, 8.7M SF data center campus in Bartow County.