At the July 8th, 2026 council meeting in Marietta, we witnessed a mockery of the democratic process. Threatening lawmakers. Shouting down legitimate and caring development of an infrastructure facility. These opponents said anything they wanted, told falsehoods, lied, and made a mockery of the process.
It's time the council heard from us, the silent majority of citizens behind this website. We are contractors, plumbers, working folks who want this facility. It's a carefully planned addition to our city, and it is limited in size. Yet those who want only to hurt our economy are the loudest voices.
No longer. We will rise up and be heard. Here are the facts on the Powers Ferry Road site. We look forward to making our voices count.
Think of it the way you think about a water line or a fiber trunk: essential, unglamorous service that hospitals, banks, schools, and small businesses rely on daily without thinking about it. Computing equipment sits inside the existing envelope, cooled by a sealed air-cooled loop, carrying a 12 MW IT load within an 18 MW total facility design.
The storage yard is restored outside the support-yard area to preserve the maximum storage operation the code allows. The fire lane and billboard easement are retained.
The property sits in an established commercial corridor served by existing power, fiber, and interstate access. Current zoning is CRC (Community Retail Commercial). The future land use designation is RAC (Regional Activity Center). Neither is being changed.
The site lies within the Regional Activity Center under existing Community Retail Commercial zoning. This is not a request to change the character of the corridor. It is a use consistent with what the corridor is already designated for.
Roughly 800,000 square feet of office space surrounds the site in the Northchase Parkway business district. The immediate neighbors of this property are, overwhelmingly, other commercial buildings.
Power, fiber, transportation, and utility capacity are already here. Reusing them is what allows this project to proceed without new public infrastructure or major transmission expansion.
Marietta is nationally recognized as a Top Digital City. That recognition reflects a long civic investment in technology and connectivity, the same investment this facility extends.
Noise was the loudest concern in the room, and it is the one we take most seriously, because it is the one a neighbor actually lives with. Equipment noise is engineered down at the source, and compliance is confirmed by an independent third-party acoustical study before the facility opens.
A third-party acoustic study confirms compliance with the City's property-line limits before the facility opens. Not our measurement. Theirs.
Mechanical systems sit inside the building or within engineered acoustic housings.
New opaque, sound-attenuating perimeter fencing along the equipment yard.
A new privacy wall along the full boundary with the adjoining residential property.
Equipment faces I-75, behind setbacks and retained tree buffers. Grade rises about 20 feet toward the rear buffer, placing equipment downhill and adding natural screening.
No public-address systems, no customer traffic, no late-night deliveries.
Marietta is under a state drought response, and water responsibility is a fair thing to demand of any new use. This facility is engineered to consume very little water and to discharge none at all. That is not a target we are aiming at. It is what a sealed, air-cooled system does.
Cooling runs in a sealed loop. No water is consumed to reject heat.
No evaporative cooling, and none of the large-scale water loss that cooling towers create.
Nothing is released to the sewer system. Glycol stays sealed in-system.
Restrooms and basic building needs. No strain on Marietta Water or sewer.
Like filling a swimming pool, the initial charge comes by truck from a qualified source rather than from the city system.
The same chillers used in commercial buildings, hotels, and hospitals throughout the region.
The site is served by Marietta Power, which belongs to the city. This project arrives as a long-term commercial customer paying commercial rates, adding local revenue rather than shifting infrastructure or operating costs onto residents.
Privately funded, billed at commercial rates. A new revenue customer, not a cost passed to residents. Zero impact to residential ratepayers.
The project draws on electric capacity that is already built and waiting for customers, avoiding major transmission expansion to serve the site.
Mission-critical facilities run continuously. A stable long-term customer broadens the utility's base and spreads fixed system costs across more revenue, which works in residential ratepayers' favor.
A developer saying "trust us, it will be quiet" is worth exactly what you think it is worth. So we have asked the City to attach the following to any approval as conditions. A condition is not a courtesy. If we violate one, the City can act against the approval itself, and we lose the thing we spent $100 million to build.
Stricter than the City's own daytime ordinance, which permits 65 dBA. Equal to its nighttime limit. Measured at the line, not at the equipment.
Requested as a binding conditionPerformed by a third-party acoustical engineer, not by us, confirming compliance at the property line. If it fails, we do not open until it passes.
Requested as a binding conditionNew construction along the full length of the boundary with the adjoining residential property.
Requested as a binding conditionEnclosing the generators and chillers, in addition to the acoustic housings on the equipment itself.
Requested as a binding conditionThe equipment yard faces the interstate, behind setbacks. Grade rises roughly 20 feet toward the rear buffer, which places the equipment downhill of the homes and adds natural screening.
Requested as a binding conditionThe mature buffer stays. It is the screening you already have, and it does not get cleared for this.
Requested as a binding conditionThe infrastructure use is limited to its footprint of roughly 17% of the site. The storage yard is restored outside the support area, and the fire lane and billboard easement are retained.
Requested as a binding conditionSealed, air-cooled system. No cooling towers, no evaporative loss, nothing released to the sewer. Water use limited to restrooms and basic building needs.
Requested as a binding conditionThe project redevelops an underutilized commercial property with entirely private capital. Construction and operating dollars are spent substantially with local trades, suppliers, and skilled service businesses.
Over the build period: trades, controls, subcontractors, and local suppliers.
On-site operations plus recurring skilled-vendor services, year after year.
Local contractors, suppliers, and service vendors during construction and operations.
Total development cost including FFE, plus tenant deployment and operational spend.
Capital from Prime Group Holdings and its tenant. No public subsidy is sought.
Prime Group Holdings is a family-owned real estate company with $7.5B under management and 330+ storage facilities, 16 of them in Georgia and three in Marietta.
Both are most valuable when they sit close to the communities they serve. When computing happens near the people using it, everyday digital services get faster and more resilient: a request from a local hospital or business is handled here rather than sent across the country, and the answer returns in milliseconds.
| Essential infrastructure | What it enables | Community benefit |
|---|---|---|
| Roads | Commerce | Businesses, shopping, tourism, local jobs |
| Railroads | Manufacturing and distribution | Regional industry and supply chains |
| Fiber networks | Communications | Remote work, education, connectivity |
| Mission-critical infrastructure | The digital economy | Healthcare, financial services, public safety, education, local business |
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