Project Tango (Central Park Commerce Center) data center, Loxahatchee, Florida

Project Tango, the hyperscale AI data center PBA Holdings wanted to build at the Central Park Commerce Center near Loxahatchee, is not finished: after Palm Beach County commissioners blocked it on July 15, 2026, the developer filed an appeal under Florida's Land Use and Environmental Dispute Resolution Act. The 202-acre site is at 20125 Southern Boulevard (State Road 80) in western Palm Beach County, next to the Arden community and roughly 900 to 1,200 feet from Saddle View Elementary School.

PBA Holdings asked the county for nearly 3.6 million square feet of development: 2.35 million square feet of warehouses, 1.03 million square feet for an AI data center and 216,000 square feet of supporting utility structures. The campus was projected to draw 600 megawatts. PBA put the value of the finished data center and warehouse complex at $34.5 billion. A 2016 county approval already gives the owners the right to build 1.2 million square feet of warehouses and a 206,000-square-foot data center on the site, and that approval was not affected by the vote. "Well, that project goes forward. This vote doesn't have any effect on that," PBA project manager Ernie Cox said after the vote.

The county commission voted 5-1 after a hearing of about 12 hours, with Commissioner Maria Marino the only vote in favor. County Mayor Sara Baxter, who represents the district, recused herself after publicly opposing the project before the hearing. The Zoning Commission had already voted unanimously on July 2 to recommend against it, arguing that a hyperscale AI campus works more like a heavy industrial facility than a light industrial one. Vice Mayor Marci Woodward said the development was not "compatible" with the county's comprehensive plan and needed too many conditions just to be approved. "We're trying to make it fit. [The current zoning code] is not that. We're going to create that. But it is not that," Woodward said.

Residents organized for months against the project, arguing it would strain local infrastructure, and raised water use, electricity demand, noise and its closeness to homes and an elementary school. Opposition organizers wrote that the data center "will be constructed within 1,200 feet of Saddle View Elementary School and the preexisting Arden community and neighborhood". Opponents told the commission the campus threatened the 2,300-home Arden community with noise, vibration, heat, lighting and possible water contaminants. The developer said its closed-loop cooling would use 100,000 gallons of potable water a day and that its low-frequency hum would stay below sleep-disturbance levels; an independent review by Dr. Santiago Lattanzio called the developer's noise claims wildly inaccurate, finding its acoustic model covered only five fans and five chillers when cooling would take about 180 modules. Christina Reichert, a senior attorney with Earthjustice who spoke against the project, said heavy industrial uses belong "in places where that is appropriate, and that's not next to communities and elementary schools."

PBA's appeal, filed August 5, argues that the commission judged Project Tango against what it wished the rules were. "It is readily apparent from the conduct of the board, and the comments of the board's members, that the board reviewed the Project Tango application not pursuant to the regulatory provisions actually and legally governing such review, but measured against what the board wished those provisions were", PBA attorney Ethan Loeb wrote, adding that what the board wished for was a total ban on data centers. Under the act, a special magistrate hears the challenge, with PBA and some opponents able to call witnesses, and then reports to the County Commission; if the commission turns the rezoning down again, PBA can sue or refile. PBA has also sued WPB Logistics Owner, the TPA Group affiliate that bought 60 acres of the site in 2023, claiming a breach of their 2021 contract. That company had earlier sued PBA, and county documents show a TPA-affiliated entity explored replacing an approved 1.2 million-square-foot warehouse with four data center buildings through an administrative review with no public hearing. "It's horrifying, because for one, it's wrong," said Rachel Smith, who created the No to Project Tango website.

The county has moved to stop the next one. New data center proposals have been halted since July 9, and on August 27 commissioners voted unanimously to pursue a yearlong moratorium on large-scale data centers, defined as those with a monthly peak load of 50 megawatts or more. The final commission vote on the moratorium was scheduled for September 24, 2026. Martin County, to the north, advanced its own moratorium after backlash to the Silver Fox Data Center, and Clay, Hernando and Lake counties have adopted similar pauses. The Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners decides both the moratorium and, after the magistrate's report, Project Tango's appeal.