Stonebridge
Fort Meade data center campus, Project Stonebridge (county filing: Project Cumulus), reclaimed phosphate land west of US 17/98 in the city's northwest quadrant; Development Agreement under F.S. 163.3220-163.3243 plus a Polk County ad valorem exemption
development agreement, approved, approved 2026-04-14
Developer: Fort Meade, LLC (Delaware), doing business as Fort Meade DC, LLC, c/o Stonebridge Associates, Inc., Bethesda MD; landowners Florida Ecopark LLC and Polk Industrial Park LLC (developer under contract to buy); Bohler Places LLC filed the 2025 rezoning
Scale: 1,200 MW · 1,163.67 acres · 4,400,000 sq ft · 2,840,000,000 USD
Verification: read from the signed document
A strong version: A fund that scales with the project, with a community seat on the body that spends it
Not addressed in the agreement.
No community fund. The agreement's $10,000,000 Developer Funding Advance (Sec. 3.d) pays for City Work (fire station, library, communications and asset-management systems, future water supplies, vertipad/vertiport facilities, planning, staff or consultants) in two $5M installments, and is repaid to the developer through credits against City ad valorem taxes (Sec. 4.d), so it is an advance on taxes, as the Commerce Secretary's April 15, 2026 letter states, not new revenue. Separately the developer covers up to $300,000 of PRWC or other water-rights charges (Sec. 3.b). Press reports of $10M for water-system upgrades describe one permitted use of the advance.
A strong version: Incentives come back if the facility stops operating, not only if a jobs number is missed
triggers: jobs, investment, other · proportional: no
The county performance agreement conditions the exemption on investing at least $125,000,000 by the end of the second exemption year and creating at least 50 full-time jobs at an average wage of at least $106,498 by the end of the third (Sec. 2.a-b). On failure, after written notice and a cure period of at least 30 days, the County may revoke the exemption by ordinance and recover all taxes exempted for any year the company was not entitled (Sec. 5.a, 5.c); recovery is per year, not scaled to the shortfall. Affiliates may satisfy the obligations (Sec. 2.e). The City agreement has no clawback; its only protection is that if the project is not built before the agreement expires, the City keeps the $10M advance (Sec. 3.d). No source supports the earlier note that the mayor pledged legal action.
A strong version: A bond, escrow, or letter of credit that pays for teardown and site restoration if the operator walks
Not addressed in the agreement.
instrument: none
Neither the City agreement nor the county ordinance or performance agreement contains a decommissioning, restoration, or end-of-life obligation. The only surety is a construction bond of 110 percent of the engineer's estimate for the water and wastewater improvements (Sec. 3.a).
A strong version: The operator pays for its own interconnection and carries a minimum bill that survives it leaving
interconnect paid by: unknown · governed by: Florida CS/CS/SB 484 (2026), Data Centers, Chapter 2026-65, approved May 7, 2026; Duke Energy Florida's first large-load tariff petition under it was heard by the Public Service Commission in August 2026 and not yet approved
The City agreement is silent on electricity. The site is in Duke Energy Florida's investor-owned territory, not the City's municipal electric system (Fort Meade is an FMPA member), which the Commerce Secretary's letter cites as a risk because no PSC-approved large-load rate structure existed. SB 484 requires utilities to ensure each large-load customer bears its full cost of service; Duke's pending petition proposes a 20-year minimum term, minimum monthly bills, and exit fees, so any minimum bill will come from that tariff. The developer told residents it will fund its own utility infrastructure.
A strong version: A stated cap or closed-loop cooling, plus public reporting
cap: 50,000 gal/day · reporting: no · recycling required: no · cooling: closed loop
The City reserves up to 50,000 GPD of potable water and 50,000 GPD of sewer capacity at full buildout (Sec. 3.a, 4.a.i) for 20 years, with no vested right to more (Sec. 4.a.iv) and no City obligation to expand or join the Polk Regional Water Cooperative (Sec. 4.a.ii); drought restrictions apply to the developer like other commercial customers. The developer designs, builds, bonds, and dedicates the water and wastewater lines within five years, reimbursed 100 percent through impact-fee credits (Sec. 8). The agreement does not specify cooling technology or require recycling; reclaimed water is optional (Sec. 10). The only reporting duty is copies of regulatory filings to the City within 10 days (Sec. 3.e). The whole agreement is contingent on SWFWMD approving a modification of the City's Water Use Permit No. 20000645.008, which also sets the Effective Date (Sec. 35); SWFWMD wrote the City on April 14, 2026 that the demand is not in the existing permit and needs governing-board approval at a noticed meeting. Closed-loop cooling and the reduction from an initial 140,000 to 150,000 GPD are developer statements reported by WUSF and FOX 13. The state called 50,000 GPD woefully underestimated.
A strong version: A numeric limit measured at the nearest residence or property line
Not addressed in the agreement.
The agreement sets no noise limit; Sec. 14.a only requires compliance with laws on noise and emissions. Stonebridge told the planning board that generators would register 50 to 52 dB a half mile away, run about 40 hours in a typical year, and be permitted for no more than 100 hours a year (WUSF); at a January 2026 forum it said equipment produces about 85 dB and generators would run about an hour a week (The Ledger).
A strong version: Binding job commitments with a consequence, not projections
permanent: 50 · local hire: yes · prevailing wage: no · enforceable: yes
The only binding jobs number is in the county performance agreement: at least 50 new full-time jobs at an average wage of at least $106,498 (200 percent of the 2025 Polk County average) by the end of the third exemption year, with commercially reasonable efforts to hire Polk County residents, enforced by revocation and recovery of exempted taxes. The City agreement contains no jobs term. The developer's 450-plus figure (Propmodo; at least 456 by 2031 per The Ledger's forum coverage, with construction peaking at 3,960 in 2028) is a projection the Commerce Secretary called a severe over projection with no supporting data in the City staff report.
Softening languageHiring Polk County residents is a "commercially reasonable efforts" obligation, not a quota.
A strong version: Local subcontracting goals and haul-route road repair paid by the operator
local subcontracting: yes · road repair: no · infrastructure: $300,000
County performance agreement Sec. 2.c: commercially reasonable efforts to use local suppliers where practicable. The City agreement has no local-contracting term; the City Manager approves the developer's contractors for the water and wastewater work (Sec. 6.a). No haul-route repair obligation; a construction traffic plan is to be set at permitting (Sec. 6.g). The developer builds and dedicates public water, wastewater, and roadway improvements, but the utility work is repaid in full through impact-fee credits (Sec. 8.b), and the $10M advance is repaid through tax credits, so the only unreimbursed cash contribution is up to $300,000 toward water rights (Sec. 3.b).
Softening languageUsing local suppliers is "commercially reasonable efforts ... where practicable."
A strong version: No NDA, the agreement is public, and an independent audit on a schedule
agreement public: yes · dashboard: no · audit: on request · independent: no
The agreement text is public in the City's April 14, 2026 agenda packet; the county ordinance and signed performance agreement are on Polk County's Legistar. The City may audit the developer's payment records at its headquarters on five business days' notice for the term plus 10 years (Sec. 16); the county gets annual reports, DOR Form 418 filings, and an on-site inspection with 10 business days' notice (performance agreement Sec. 3). No NDA appears in either document, but the tenant is undisclosed (the state letter notes no operator has been named), interim city manager Alis Drumgo declined to name the company at the June 2025 rezoning (DCD), and the Ledger reported many residents were unaware of that 5-0 vote. The staff memo says the P&Z hearing was April 7, 2026; the agreement's recital says April 9. The executed and recorded agreement was not located; the Effective Date is to be set by a recorded document once SWFWMD acts (Sec. 35).
A strong version: A but-for test before any abatement, with the forgone revenue stated
abatement: 90% · years: 10 · PILOT: no · forgone: $148,375,360 · but-for test: no
Polk County Ordinance 25-062 (adopted Nov. 4, 2025, unanimous; recognized for Fort Meade DC, LLC on Nov. 18) exempts 90 percent of the assessed value of qualifying new improvements and tangible personal property from countywide levies for tax years 2029 through 2038, expiring Dec. 31, 2038; it does not apply to municipal, school, MSTU, water-management-district, or voted-debt taxes, or to land. The Property Appraiser's report (Exhibit A) estimates $14,837,536 of county revenue lost in a full year on $918M of real improvements and $1,318,320,000 of equipment, with the school board still collecting about $13,159,501; the widely quoted $150M is that annual figure times ten (148,375,360), which is not in the ordinance and overstates the total because equipment depreciates. The ordinance makes no but-for finding. The City granted no exemption; instead it repays the $10M advance through credits against City ad valorem taxes, capped at 40 percent of the City levy on the property per year, carried forward, subject to annual appropriation, and running with the land (Sec. 4.d); the project is also grandfathered into the current impact-fee schedule and receives 100 percent impact-fee credits for the utility work.
Florida Commerce Secretary J. Alex Kelly's April 15, 2026 letter to the mayor called the project fundamentally flawed and far from approved, said the $10M is an advance on property taxes, called the 450-jobs projection a severe over projection, and said the 50,000 GPD water demand is woefully underestimated. source
The Southwest Florida Water Management District wrote the City on April 14, 2026 that the project's demand is not in the City's existing permit and needs governing-board approval at a noticed meeting; the agreement is contingent on that approval. source
Two lawsuits filed May 14, 2026 by Lakeland attorney A. Brent Geohagan for five residents ask a judge to void the approval and block construction permits. source
The Fort Meade Recall Committee delivered petitions with more than 1,000 signatures to City Hall in mid-July 2026 seeking to remove Mayor Jaret Williams, Vice Mayor Petrina McCutchen, and Commissioner Matthew Taylor. source
Forty of 41 public commenters opposed the deal at the April 14 vote, per the FloridaDataCenters.org tracker; the vice mayor defended the vote as taking a leap of faith. source
The Planning and Zoning Board recommended that the mayor and commissioners visit a comparable data center before approving the agreement; the commission approved it a week later without doing so. source