Amazon recently paid hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire nearly 1,000 acres between Atlanta and Macon for potential data center development.
Amazon Web Services, a division of the e-commerce giant, agreed July 25 to pay roughly $270 million to buy a 985-acre development site along I-75 in rural Lamar County, about an hour south of Atlanta. The property is part of a large industrial park called Legacy 75 Trade Center, which is proposed to eventually include 19 million square feet of development. That’s the equivalent of about a dozen Lenox Square malls.
The sale by High Falls 75 LLC, the industrial park’s developer, was confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by the Lamar County Clerk of Superior Court. The transaction was first reported last week by local news outlet the Barnesville Buzz.
Amazon Web Services oversees the online retail and tech company’s cloud computing platform and data center operations. It has been rapidly increasing its footprint in Georgia, announcing $11 billion of data center investment earlier this year.
The company did not disclose its plans for the Lamar property, but an Amazon spokesperson said it is being evaluated as a data center development site.
“We are constantly evaluating new locations based on customer demand,” the spokesperson said in an email. “We recently purchased land in Lamar County, Georgia, and are performing due diligence in exploring possible data center locations.”
Tim Abney of KW Commercial, who handles real estate services for Legacy 75, declined to comment, citing a nondisclosure agreement that’s tied to this land sale.
Lamar County Chairman Ryran Traylor said Amazon Web Services had yet to approach the county with its specific plans. But upcoming meetings should yield more details.
“The exact details of Amazon’s intended development will be presented during upcoming pre-construction meetings with the county,” he said in a statement. “At these meetings, Amazon will clarify their plans, providing greater insight into the nature and scope of their project.”
Legacy 75 is among two large industrial parks being developed in the area, both by Henry County developer Doug Adams.
Legacy 75 is near Exit 198 off I-75 and is zoned for manufacturing and industrial development. The site is also subject to several easements and a restrictive covenant that was established as part of Legacy 75’s master planning process.
“We recognize that industrial developments can impact surrounding properties,” Traylor said. “And we are committed to ensuring that this new project brings the minimal possible disruption to neighboring areas and Lamar County as a whole.”
Credit: Courtesy Amazon Web Services / Noah Berger
Credit: Courtesy Amazon Web Services / Noah Berger
Metro Atlanta has been the hottest market for new data centers for the past few years. By midyear, Atlanta was the second-largest market in the world as measured by power usage, trailing only Northern Virginia, according to real estate services firm CBRE.
The industry’s rapid growth is in response to ballooning demand for digital storage space, spurred by advances in artificial intelligence. President Donald Trump’s administration recently released an “AI Action Plan” looking to expedite data center development, which his administration and tech companies have called critical infrastructure.
Though elected leaders often like data centers because of the property tax revenue they produce, the complexes have sparked pushback in many areas over their power usage and proximity to residential neighborhoods in some cases. Several Georgia counties have issued moratoriums blocking new data center proposals, and Atlanta leaders have banned them across much of the city.
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