Why data centers are facing rising pushback across the Charlotte region
Plans in Matthews, Mooresville scrapped as residents oppose bigger and bigger projects
The following article appeared in the October 10, 2025, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with smart and original local news for Charlotte. We offer free and paid subscription plans. More info here.
Backlash erupts as ‘the industry of the moment’ tries to expand in the Charlotte region; As developers rush to claim sites, concerns grow over use of energy and water
by Ashley Fahey
This week, cheers erupted during an election forum in Matthews when the town’s mayor said a rezoning petition to allow a data center on a 123-acre site in the town would be withdrawn.
The project generated significant backlash from Matthews residents, who cited concerns about the facility’s energy and water requirements, noise and environmental impacts, as well as the possibility of higher energy bills.
Data centers — and the controversy they tend to bring — aren’t contained to one site or one project in the Charlotte region. Currently, there are 43 data centers in the 14-county Charlotte region, according to the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, and a lot more are on the way.
Between both the Charlotte and Raleigh metro areas, there was 113.4 megawatts of data center space underway in the first half of 2024 — more than 15 times the previous high for those markets recorded in the first half of 2016, according to data from commercial real estate firm CBRE.
Much of the opposition has come out against so-called “hyperscale” data centers, which are the largest, most powerful facilities that can accommodate large-scale computing needs. As artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent in daily life, so, too, does the demand for more data storage and the facilities that can support AI workloads and machine learning.
These facilities are significantly larger — in storage and capabilities, square footage, investment dollars and energy consumption — than the data centers of the past several decades.
“Data centers are the industry of the moment,” said John Boyd Jr., principal of site selection firm The Boyd Co. “Of course, this is driven by huge AI demands that are transforming every part of our economy. Most site selectors would talk about data centers as the most active industry sector right now.”