Vintage Partners data center, Phoenix, Arizona

Vintage Partners has dropped its data center plan for 63 acres at the southwest corner of Loop 202 and Lower Buckeye Road in Laveen, Phoenix, in Maricopa County, Arizona, after the city asked it to. The Scottsdale developer, through VP LB & 202 LLC, now proposes neighborhood commercial and retail uses on about 22.6 acres along Lower Buckeye Road and employment uses on the remaining 41.8 acres. Its latest filing, a public hearing draft dated August 31, 2026, would bar data centers on the site entirely.

Vintage bought the land from the Arizona Department of Transportation, and it came with transmission lines and an electrical substation that made the site look well suited for a data center under how city staff then read the zoning. Partner Walter Crutchfield told the Phoenix Business Journal the company had spent a year and a half building toward the project and the site was "almost ready to switch on."

Phoenix adopted new data center rules on July 2, 2025, after Mayor Kate Gallego called for ending tax incentives for data centers, and Crutchfield said those rules, plus changes to how projects wait in line for power, left Vintage responsible for grid upgrades as part of a user "cluster." Vintage filed a claim for the property's lost value; the city asked it to drop the claim and scrap the data center.

The rules Phoenix's Planning Commission recommended defined data centers, required a utility's written "will-serve" letter before site plan approval, barred them within 300 feet of homes where ambient noise is already high, and kept them 2,640 feet from high capacity transit stations. Deputy City Manager Alan Stephenson said, "Any land within these centers and the village cores should be focused on creating a significant number of jobs or housing units."

In its own filing, Vintage said it agreed to the new plan "following coordination with City Council and City staff" despite "the substantial financial impacts associated with a change in development direction." Phoenix rezonings go to the Laveen Village Planning Committee and the Planning Commission before a final vote by the Phoenix City Council, which has not yet scheduled a vote on the August 31, 2026 draft.