La Osa Energy Center (Vermaland) data center, Pinal County, Arizona

The Pinal County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 on August 26, 2026 to reject the rezoning for the La Osa Energy Center, a data center campus that the Phoenix land developer Vermaland planned on more than 3,300 acres near Eloy, in Pinal County, Arizona. The vote blocked the project even after Vermaland cut its plan from 59 buildings and two gas-fired power plants to 11 buildings and one 500-megawatt gas plant, capped at 1 gigawatt of total energy demand, and offered new water and noise conditions. Supervisor Stephen Miller cast the only vote in favor.

When Vermaland announced the project in the summer of 2025, it described La Osa as a $33 billion data center industrial park that would support up to 3 gigawatts of power and become the largest such development in the United States. Vermaland's chief executive, Kuldip Verma, said the company was building "the next generation of digital infrastructure," and a separate 1,700-acre part of its land had already received zoning for data centers, gas plants, battery storage and solar.

A rural-to-industrial rezoning ordinance for La Osa was proposed in April 2026, and the county's Planning and Zoning Commission approved an earlier, larger version of the plan; by the August 26 vote the project had been cut to 11 buildings, a 500-megawatt natural gas plant and battery storage.

Robin Davis, who lives in Hidden Valley, said she thought the reduction was "probably planned all along. Ask for more than you want and settle for what you really wanted." Mark Seidel of Florence told the board, "I don't want stipulations that are unenforceable or not enforced. I don't want promises from a lawyer or seller that have no meaning after the sale."

Between the May hearing and the vote, Vermaland added 22 development conditions, including a 600 acre-foot yearly cap on fresh water use, close to 200 million gallons. Antonio Ramirez of Rural Arizona Engagement raised the closed loop cooling system: "There's also water quality issues because the closed loop systems use PFAS, and if that water is injected back into the ground, groundwater system, then that could contaminate other people's water supply." Mary Eileen Flanagan, an area resident, said the aquifer already suffers from overdrawing and land subsidence.

Vermaland's Robert Clang told the board the developer had secured 500 megawatts of natural gas from a broker and the turbines for the plant, and would try to get the rest from nearby solar farms or the Palo Verde nuclear plant, more than 100 miles away. Supervisor Jeffrey McClure doubted it: "My understanding is that's dedicated to some other companies."

At an August 13 special session, planning commissioners Robert Klob and Gary Pranzo said they did not know enough about the county's energy picture to recommend large data centers. "Are we robbing resources from residential? Who's going to take precedent if we have power failure or not enough power?" Pranzo asked.

Planning commissioner Karen Mooney said the county had received incomplete information and inaccurate job and economic figures in the earlier applications: "Nothing was mentioned about the data center, and data centers hadn't come here yet." Union members spoke in favor, pointing to construction jobs; Bill Ruiz of the Workforce Arizona Council said the project would provide "hard hats that [are] going to pay the bills here." Supervisor Stephen Miller, who cast the only vote for the project, said, "Individuals have a right to use their property the way they want. I really truly believe that all the negativity on these data centers has been from our adversaries around the world."

Pinal County's zoning code has no definition of a data center and no rules written for one; every water, noise and energy limit in the La Osa plan was offered by Vermaland rather than required by the county. Any new data center plan on the site would have to go back before the five county supervisors, and residents are pressing the county to write data center rules before it considers another proposal.