Spartanburg Council Backs Pact for 457-Megawatt Data Center

SPARTANBURG, S.C., Oct. 22. Spartanburg County Council voted 4 to 1 on Oct. 22 to approve, on first reading, a development agreement for the NorthMark and Valara data center on Pine Street, a 457-megawatt project with its own natural gas power plant. Councilman Monier Abusaft voted no, and Councilwoman Jessica Coker was absent. The council had failed to approve the agreement at its meeting three days earlier. The agreement comes on top of a fee-in-lieu-of-tax deal the council passed in 2025, before the public knew how large the project would be. State regulators issued an air permit in September for 11 gas turbines that add 408 megawatts of generating capacity at the site.

The agreement was authorized through the county's recent moratorium on data centers, which limits new ones to 65 megawatts. County officials believe the moratorium applies to the NorthMark project because the project still needs a second permit to be finished. The county's two other data center projects, at the Tyger River Industrial Park and on Jones Road, are 65 megawatts or smaller and draw their power from the grid.

Under the agreement, the developers must hold a community meeting every year and report yearly to the county on their investment, construction, water use, demand on the grid and for gas, and employment. In return the county agreed to speed its reviews of the project and not to withhold approvals unreasonably. Negotiations continue before the further readings, and a separate lawsuit by residents asks whether the project should have been reviewed as a major development.