‘Against it’: Developer withdraws Matthews data center plans amid public opposition

MATTHEWS, N.C. — The proposed data center in Matthews is no more after the potential developer pulled their application.

Most politicians Channel 9’s Eli Brand spoke with said they would not have voted to move forward with that application, but they’re not taking credit for killing it. They say they believe it was the public backlash that caused that developer to pull that application.

“Probably for every 100 emails I got, about 99 were against it,” Matthews Mayor John Higdon said.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Residents upset over possibility of data center in Matthews

Higdon says the idea of a data center in the town of Matthews was an interesting one when it was proposed a few months ago. He says it could have potentially been an economic boon for the town, but the public backlash was just too much for it to be doable.

“As I learned about it, I felt that there would be too many unknowns to be real comfortable moving forward with it,” he said.

The proposal, called Project Accelerate, was for 123 acres of development along East John Street. Several neighbors spoke out in recent weeks with concerns about water usage and pollution.

According to the mayor, the center would have recycled the same water during its lifespan, but still would have required 1 million gallons to get started.

“Well, it’s pretty obvious, it’s pretty obvious that the opposition, that you’re going to be pushing that string up a hill and I urged them a severe amount of caution,” Matthews Town Commissioner John Urban said.

Urban says he and other commissioners were also hit with multitudes of negative emails about the proposed project.

As for Higdon, he said more data center applications would not be supported by him.

“I would not recommend any developer come to Matthews and suggest building a data center here,” Higdon said.

Channel 9 reached out to the developer who proposed the data center. They responding with a statement saying, “The development team for Project Accelerate has requested withdrawal of its rezoning petition. This will allow additional time to explore options.”

VIDEO: Developer withdraws plans for controversial Matthews data center project