The Project Tango datacenter, proposed on a 202-acre site roughly 16 miles west of Mar-a-Lago in western Palm Beach county, is shaping up as one of the most consequential planning fights in Florida, and the Everglades may be the biggest loser if it proceeds.
The developer, PBA Holdings, Inc, wants to build a 600 MW hyperscale facility near the northern edge of the Everglades, a watershed that the federal government and the state of Florida have spent a combined $6 billion to restore after decades of drainage and agricultural damage. Environmentalists argue the project would undo a portion of that investment before the concrete is even poured.
Why the Project Tango Datacenter Has Palm Beach Worried
The core concern is heat. Reinaldo Diaz, who grew up in Palm Beach county and founded Lake Worth Waterkeeper, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the watershed, says waste heat from the facility would raise water temperatures in the surrounding canal network, feeding the toxic cyanobacteria blooms that already plague the region.
Those blooms are not a theoretical risk. On 30 July, the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach county issued a health alert about cyanobacteria in Lake Okeechobee, which feeds directly into the Everglades. In recent summers, blue-green algae has covered nearly half the lake’s surface. The bacteria produce microcystin, a toxin that sickens people and animals and can contaminate drinking water.
PBA Holdings says its closed-loop cooling system would minimise water consumption. A health and safety assessment the company commissioned acknowledges that air temperatures around the cooling equipment could rise by 1C to 2C, but argues prevailing winds would carry that heat away from the neighbouring community and the elementary school roughly 1,200 feet from the site. The assessment does not address the risk of bacterial blooms. Emerging research suggests even smaller datacenters can increase downwind air temperature by as much as 2C.
Diaz is unconvinced by the cooling argument. ‘Our watershed is really complex,’ he told the Guardian. ‘Ours is more like a spiderweb, that’s why the impacts would be far reaching.’ Phosphorus and nitrogen from decades of sugarcane runoff are already sitting in the canals. Warming the water even a couple of degrees, Diaz said, would be like adding fuel to the fire.
At 600 MW peak capacity, the facility would consume roughly as much electricity as half a million US homes, according to US Energy Information Administration estimates of residential electricity use. That scale of power demand also carries grid upgrade costs that typically filter back to household electricity bills.
A Denial That May Not Be the Last Word
Palm Beach county commissioners voted 5-1 in July to deny the expansion of Project Tango. That vote came after the Palm Beach County Zoning Commission had already voted unanimously to recommend against the proposal on 2 July 2026. The opposition filing with the county included letters from the city of Westlake, the town of Loxahatchee Groves, the Everglades Coalition, the Palm Beach county school board, a Florida state representative, and a Florida state senator.
PBA Holdings has since challenged the denial, alleging that commissioners weighed factors such as noise, heat emissions, and possible future datacenter regulations that fell outside the legal standards governing the application. According to WPBF, the company notes that county planning staff had recommended approval and concluded the revised application met applicable code criteria. PBA Holdings also alleges the county had actively encouraged large-scale datacenter development on the site for years, pointing to earlier approvals that permitted up to 1.2 million square feet of datacenter space.
The company had sought to increase total permitted development at the Central Park Commerce Center site from just over 2 million square feet to 3.6 million square feet, according to the Palm Beach County zoning portal, which still shows three applications under review. Two further administrative applications that could add additional square footage remain live.
The site’s ownership structure has added a further complication. Atlanta-based TPA Group, which owns 60 of the site’s 202 acres, filed a competing application in late April 2026 seeking 1.1 million square feet of datacenter space on its portion of the land. Stet News reported that if TPA Group proceeded, PBA Holdings would be capped at 700,000 square feet under current county approvals, a constraint that presumably underpins PBA Holdings’ push for the broader rezoning.
The site’s appeal to developers is partly explained by its proximity to the West County Energy Center, operated by Florida Power & Light. With a total nameplate capacity of 3,750 MW across three combined-cycle generating units, it is the largest natural gas plant in the United States and has been operational since 2009. PBA Holdings spent $20 million on county approvals and ensuring the site has adequate power reliability for data processing.
Project manager Ernie Cox, in a statement, said the company was ‘disappointed with the Commission’s decision’ and would ‘evaluate our options moving forward.’ Sue Ellen Loyzelle, a founding member of the Western Palm Beach Community Alliance and a resident of the neighbouring Arden community, was blunter: ‘What is all of this going to do?’
Palm Beach county commissioners are due to vote next month on a moratorium against large-scale datacenters. Several Florida counties have already adopted similar measures. Whether that vote arrives before PBA Holdings’ challenge finds a sympathetic hearing will determine whether Project Tango dies at the planning stage or simply moves to a different forum.
