Palm Beach County rejects huge AI data center near Trump's Mar-a-Lago after resident backlash

• Palm Beach County rejected a proposed AI data center near President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago.
• The planned development, known as "Project Tango," has faced widespread community backlash.
• Communities are resisting data centers as tech companies race to build them.

A proposal to build a massive AI data center roughly 20 miles from President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, was rejected late Wednesday by county commissioners after a marathon hearing.

The Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners' 5-1 vote on "Project Tango" followed months of organized opposition from residents who argued that the plans would strain local infrastructure and negatively impact the surrounding community.

The decision marks one of the latest flashpoints in the race to build out AI data centers across the United States.

Local residents, many wearing green shirts that read "NO to Project Tango," packed the 12-hour public hearing on the proposal ahead of the vote.

PBA Holdings Inc., the developer behind the project, sought county approval to nearly double the size of a previously approved development in Loxahatchee to about 3.6 million square feet, including more than 1 million square feet of data center space.

The developer said it revised the proposal ahead of Wednesday's hearing to address community concerns.

During the hearing, a project manager for PBA Holdings estimated that the completed development would generate $561 million in annual property tax revenue.

Still, the proposal drew strong backlash from local residents concerned about water use, electricity demand, and noise. Community members were also concerned about the site's proximity to homes and a nearby elementary school.

"Not only is this AI Data Center a threat to the health, well-being, and safety of the hardworking, tax-paying residents of Palm Beach County and their families and children, it becomes a more extreme problem due to the fact that it will be constructed within 1,200 feet of Saddle View Elementary School and the preexisting Arden community and neighborhood," opposition organizers wrote on the NoToProjectTango.com website.

Ernie Cox, the project manager for PBA Holdings, told a local NBC affiliate after the vote that the commission's decision does not change the existing approvals on the project, which records show include two 100,000-square-foot data center buildings.

"Well, that project goes forward. This vote doesn't have any effect on that," Cox told the outlet.

The commission's decision leaves the door open for the developer to revise the proposal and resubmit it at a later date.

The fight over Project Tango comes as AI is fueling an unprecedented data center construction boom across the country.

As tech companies pour billions of dollars into new facilities, communities are increasingly pushing back over fears of the environmental and economic impacts.

According to the research project Data Center Watch, a record of at least 75 data center proposals worth an estimated $130 billion were delayed or blocked during the first three months of 2026 due to local opposition.

Meanwhile, towns and cities across the country are pausing or outright banning data center developments. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order earlier this week imposing the nation's first statewide moratorium on large-scale data centers.

Trump, in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, slammed the move, saying, "New York State has made a terrible decision."

"Data Centers are tremendous WINS for the States and Communities that are lucky enough to get them. New York should change its Policy, IMMEDIATELY," wrote the president, who called data centers "Money Machines."