A 290-acre data center was set to be the city's biggest project ever. It was tied to Amazon.
The council killed it 7-0.
The vote in August 2025 ended weeks of public anger. The plan would have used about 2,000 acre-feet of city water a year.
That would have made it the biggest water user in town. Overnight.
The council also voted to start writing new rules for big water users. They're drafting zoning rules for future data centers too.
For tech giants, the message was hard to miss.
The project was led by a builder called Beale. Beale is owned by an asset firm named Blue Owl.
Amazon Web Services' role only came out later. A local outlet got county records.
They tied Amazon to the project.
The site was set for three data center buildings at first. Reports said up to 10 buildings were planned.
They would total 2 million square feet. The full site would have used 600 megawatts of power.
The builder said the project would be "net water positive." That meant a $100 million recycled water pipeline. Plus other water savings projects.
Critics said the city had no way to make those promises stick.
In 2025, local groups blocked or delayed at least 16 data center projects, per a Fortune count.
The blocked projects were worth a combined $64 billion.
People are pushing back on three things. Water use.
Power strain. Who actually runs the sites.
More than 300 state bills on data center rules have been filed. All in the first six weeks of 2026, per tracking group MultiState.
They span more than 30 states. Georgia paused all new data center reviews in April 2025 over water issues.
Arizona had another rejection. Chandler's council rejected a 422,000 square foot AI data center in December 2025.
Each blocked site is one less spot for cloud giants to use. That pushes more buyers toward on-site power and water plans.
You can see the shift in the deals. Oracle signed for fuel cells with Bloom (BE).
Amazon signed for nuclear power. Microsoft signed for Three Mile Island.
None of those rely on the local grid for big chunks of power.
For investors, the trend is clear. The names making on-site power gear are winning big.
So are firms that own private power plants. The names that depend on local sign-off face a tougher path.
The project isn't fully dead. The county had already sold the land to the builder.
The Arizona Corporation Commission signed off on a power supply deal with the local power firm in November 2025. The builder is now working on an air-cooled version.
It doesn't need city water.
Amazon has reportedly walked away as the end user. Other tenants are now under review.
The fight just moved. It didn't end.
The next round of votes will tell the rest. The next round of votes in other towns will tell the rest.
