en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Colorado Springs Planning Department has approved a plan proposed by Raeden, a California-based company, to convert a former Intel chip manufacturing facility into an approximately 50 MW AI data center. The project, named "Project Taurus," is located on the former site near Garden of the Gods Road. The planning department approved the development plan modification on June 11. According to DatacenterDynamics, the existing structure covers approximately 451,000 square feet on a 22-acre site, with buildings, power distribution, and fiber optics already in place, allowing the project to proceed with only administrative approval, bypassing a lengthy rezoning process. Residents within three miles of the site have until June 22 to file an appeal, and as of mid-June, no appeals had been received. The project has sparked local opposition due to its proximity to residential areas, with city leadership remaining tight-lipped on specifics.
In contrast to Colorado Springs' proactive approach, five jurisdictions in the Front Range have taken action since May to suspend or ban new data centers. The Denver City Council unanimously approved a one-year moratorium on new developments on May 18; Jefferson County voted on May 19 to suspend new applications and rezonings for 10 months; Boulder County voted in early June to suspend accepting new applications for six months; Larimer County's moratorium is effective until the end of August 2026; and Longmont has completely banned hyperscale data centers consuming over 100 MW. The reasons cited by each jurisdiction are consistent: water resources, wildfires, grid strain, and uncertainty over the pace of technological development. Jefferson County Commissioner Rachel Zenzinger stated that assessing how data centers will interact with the urban-wildland interface, water systems, environment, and overall community health is crucial, and that this pause is a necessary interval to gather that information. At the state level, two data center bills failed to pass during the 2026 legislative session, leaving decision-making authority to local governments.
Water and power issues are at the core of the wave of data center moratoriums, which is where Colorado Springs holds a structural advantage. Raeden stated that "Project Taurus" will use a closed-loop cooling system, consuming zero water for daily cooling operations, requiring only a one-time fill of water in the low hundreds of thousands of gallons. Colorado Springs is served by the municipally owned utility Colorado Springs Utilities, which controls its own rates and load decisions. The city's dry, cool climate provides over 8,000 hours of free cooling annually, both of which alleviate the water resource and grid pressure issues currently under study by Front Range counties.
According to market tracker Baxtel, the Colorado Springs metropolitan area has a total of 13 data center sites, including operational facilities from T5, QTS, and HP. The Denver market has 67 sites, with a significant number of new projects currently frozen. Across the state of Colorado, planned and under-construction data center capacity totals hundreds of megawatts, a large portion of which is located in jurisdictions that have just hit the pause button.
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