AWS Lamar County (I-75) data center, Lamar County, Georgia

Amazon Data Services, the company's data center arm, paid about $270 million for 984.89 acres on the west side of Interstate 75 in Lamar County, Georgia, off High Falls Park Road near Exit 198 outside Barnesville. The sale closed on July 25, 2025, and at well over $270,000 an acre it was the largest real estate deal by dollar value in the county's history.

The land was part of the Legacy 75 Trade Center, an industrial park its developer, High Falls 75 LLC, planned to grow to 19 million square feet. The tract had been rezoned earlier in 2025 for warehouses and distribution centers with some retail and commercial use, and it takes in every foot of I-75 frontage on the western side of the interstate in the county, with heavy transmission lines crossing it. The rezoning carried a covenant capping buildings at 125,000 square feet, which at first looked like a bar to a data center. Barnesville Buzz found the cap covers only about 35 acres zoned commercial along High Falls Park Road; the other 950 or so acres are zoned industrial and allow up to 19 million square feet of buildings, room for a large data center campus. Other covenants still protect land near High Falls Lake on the east side of the interstate.

Amazon has not said what it will build. "We are constantly evaluating new locations based on customer demand. We recently purchased land in Lamar County, Georgia, and are performing due diligence in exploring possible data center locations," the company said after the sale. Commission chairman Ryran Traylor said Amazon would lay out the nature and scope of its plans at pre-construction meetings with the county, and that the county was committed to ensuring the project brings "the minimal possible disruption" to neighbors. "The big concern is that yes, this could be a big project that would financially take some burden off the people in our community but also that it's the least impactful on the neighbors that are around," Traylor told WGXA in September 2025.

Barnesville resident Makalyn McGuire worried about pollution and the effect on wildlife at High Falls State Park. "It disrupts the ecosystem, and when they have decided that it's over," she said. "They can just pick up and leave. Who was here left to deal with the consequences of what they've built?" Chris Manganiello, water policy director for the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, warned that rising water and power rates tied to data centers would weigh heaviest on Black residents and others who struggle to make ends meet.

In September 2025, two months after the sale, Lamar County commissioners passed a moratorium that covers data centers. Planning and zoning director Anita Buice said the pause was mainly to rewrite commercial and industrial zoning rules untouched since 2010: "Our code does not currently have the term 'data center' in it." Data centers dominated the commission's March 17, 2026 meeting, and commissioners voted unanimously to extend the moratorium.