Opposition to data center development has intensified across the U.S.

A fast-growing number of states and local governments have passed or are debating moratoriums on new data center construction. This wave of data center bans spreading across the country threatens to further impede an industry already struggling to secure enough land and power to meet surging demand. 

Bisnow/Jon Banister

Virginia data center opponents protest outside an industry event in 2023.

Data centers have emerged as a major policy concern at the state, local and federal levels. Large-scale projects routinely face heated community opposition due to resident fears about environmental impacts and local quality of life, while broader concerns about these facilities’ massive power consumption generate national headlines. 

These concerns, combined with anxiety about the consequences of the artificial intelligence technologies they enable, have led data centers to become deeply unpopular. Opposition to data centers is proving to be a fruitful position for politicians across the political spectrum and at every level of government.

Over the past three years, efforts to manage or restrict data center development in the industry’s major hubs have risen steadily, but in recent months, many efforts have emerged to impose moratoriums that would pause data center development altogether. These initiatives are gaining traction in hyperscale development hotbeds and locations that draw little interest from data center builders. 

In Congress, Democratic lawmakers Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled a data center moratorium bill in March. While it faces long odds of becoming law, similar bills at the state level are inching closer to becoming reality. 

Since the start of this year, 14 different states have considered moratoriums on new data center construction. This month, the New York Legislature passed a bill pausing all new data center development for a year. Should Gov. Kathy Hochul sign it into law, New York will become the first state to have a data center moratorium go into effect. 

New York’s potential moratorium comes on the heels of the Maine Legislature passing a similar data center pause, which was vetoed by Gov. Janet Mills in April.

Most state-level moratorium bills propose pausing data center construction for between one and three years while studies are conducted on the facilities’ environmental and economic impacts. Some outliers, like Vermont, have proposed longer bans. The bills generally focus only on pausing the construction of new data centers, although a Wisconsin bill would also halt ongoing operations at existing data centers.

Meanwhile, dozens of county and municipal governments across the U.S. have been passing their own data center bans. Some of these moratoriums have come in areas inundated by large-scale data center projects, like DeKalb County, Georgia, or communities where a proposed data center project proved deeply unpopular, such as in Normal, Illinois. Some towns, like Mansfield, Massachusetts, have passed bans despite drawing no interest from data center developers. 

For many in the data center sector, the political peril facing the industry presents the greatest challenge constraining its growth. Companies are bracing for the possibility that an industry already strapped for developable land may soon find that its options are even more limited.

Below is a list of state and local data center moratoriums that have been proposed this year.

State Moratoriums

New York

Earlier this month, the New York Legislature passed a one-year moratorium on siting, construction or commencement of operations of data centers 20 megawatts and larger. The bill requires the governor’s signature to become law, and it remains unclear whether she plans to sign or veto it.

The bill initially called for a three-year moratorium on new data center development before being amended to just one. It also requires the state’s Public Service Commission to draft new rules regulating data center power consumption. And it mandates an extensive environmental impact report from the Department of Environmental Conservation that would include regulatory and legislative policy recommendations and measure the water and power consumption of data centers already operating in the state. 

Maine

In April, Maine became the first state to have a data center moratorium pass its legislature, with lawmakers approving a bill pausing the development of new data centers in the state larger than 20 MW until November 2027. The governor then vetoed the bill.

Still, a similar bill could be coming in the near future. Despite her veto, Mills has said she supports a temporary pause on new data center construction and would have signed the bill if it had included an exemption for a specific data center project already underway in the state. 

Virginia

A torrent of data center legislation has advanced in the industry’s largest hub, with more than 60 bills introduced in the most recent legislative session aiming to manage its growth across the commonwealth. One of these bills — introduced by Del. Irene Shin, a Democrat representing Fairfax County — aims to implement a moratorium on all new data centers 1 MW or larger. This pause would last until July 2028 or until all data center grid interconnection requests are fulfilled. The bill remains in committee and was pushed into the next legislative session. 

Maryland

In January, Del. Mark Fisher, a Republican, introduced an emergency bill into the Maryland House of Delegates imposing a ban on data center construction and planning of data centers 100 MW and larger. The bill is in committee. 

Vermont

A bill introduced in January by a group of lawmakers in the Vermont General Assembly aims to implement a moratorium on the siting and construction of new data centers until 2030. During that time, the bill requires the state’s Public Utility Commission to report on how data centers impact Vermont’s natural resources and economy. The bill remains in committee. 

Oklahoma

Oklahoma lawmakers are considering a bill from Republican Sen. Kendal Sacchieri to create a moratorium on data center construction until November 2029. Applying to data centers 100 MW and larger, the pause is intended to give the Oklahoma Corporation Commission time to conduct an impact study. The bill is in committee. 

Michigan

Multiple lawmakers in Michigan have introduced bills that would enact a statewide data center moratorium, preventing local governments and the state’s Public Service Commission from approving these facilities to give officials time to evaluate their impact. The moratorium would last until at least April 2027. While these bills remain in committee, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has been supportive of data center development in the state. 

Minnesota

Introduced by Senate Democrats in March, a Minnesota bill would require the state’s Public Utilities Commission to submit a comprehensive report on the impact of data centers by July 2027 and would ban the construction of new data centers larger than 100 MW until a year after the report’s publication. The bill remains in committee. 

South Carolina

A pair of joint resolutions filed by South Carolina lawmakers in April would prevent local and state government agencies from issuing approvals related to data centers until 2028. The bills would also enact a moratorium on applications for new data centers larger than 5 MW until the state government establishes a comprehensive oversight framework. The bills remain in committee. 

Pennsylvania

A bill introduced this month in the Pennsylvania Senate by Democrat Katie Muth would ban the construction of “high impact” data centers 25 MW and larger for three years. The bill, now in committee, also mandates new studies on the impact of these facilities and authorizes local governments to enact their own data center bans. 

Georgia

Georgia lawmakers are considering a bill that would ban data center construction for a year starting in July. Introduced by Democrat Jaha Howard, the bill remains in committee. A similar bill introduced in the Georgia House of Representatives would pause data center construction until 2029 while the state conducts an impact study. 

New Hampshire

Legislation in New Hampshire calling for a one-year moratorium on data center construction was killed in committee in March.

Wisconsin

A bill introduced in Wisconsin would have been among the most restrictive moratoriums under consideration, applying not just to new construction but also to the operation of existing data centers larger than 100 MW. However, the bill was killed in committee in March. 

South Dakota

A House bill in South Dakota would have temporarily banned the construction or expansion of data centers over 50 MW until July 2027. The bill didn’t advance through committee. 

Local Moratoriums

According to datacenterbans.com and local news outlets, more than 100 cities, towns and counties have also proposed or passed data center moratoriums. 

Alabama

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

Georgia

• DeKalb County
• Camden County
• Pike County
• Lamar County
• Troup County
• LaGrange
• Clayton County
• Athens-Clarke County
• Monroe County
• Lee County

Illinois

Indiana

• Fulton County
• Starke County
• Dearborn County
• White County
• Putnam County
• Pulaski County
• Indianapolis (proposed)

Iowa

• Dubuque County
• Johnson County
• Clarke County
• Adair County
• Shelby County

Kansas

• Sedgwick County
• Miami County (proposed)
• Harvey County

Kentucky

• Oldham County
• Scott County
• Meade County
• Ashland

Louisiana

Maine

• Bangor
• Wiscasset
• Lewiston
• Scarborough (proposed)

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Michigan is the most active state for data center moratoriums, with close to 50 counties enacting or considering such bans. The total area in which data center construction is at least temporarily prohibited is roughly the size of Rhode Island.

• Meridian Township 
• Northville
• Soringfield
• Pontiac
• Sterling Heights
• Detroit (proposed)
• Ypsilanti Township
• City of Ypsilanti
• East Lansing
• Howell
• Mason 
• Armada
• Dundee
• Grand Blanc
• Green Charter
• Hayes
• Lenox
• Lodi
• Manchester
• Pittsfield
• Saginaw
• Saline
• South Lyon
• Sylvan
• Taylor
• Tyrone
• Ann Arbor
• Erie
• Delta County (proposed)
• Washington

Minnesota

Missouri

• St. Charles
• Jackson County (proposed)
• Columbia

Nevada

New Jersey

• Princeton Township
• Phillipsburg

New York

North Carolina

• Charlotte
• Chatham County
• Orange County
• Canton
• Boone
• Gates County
• Brevard
• Clay County
• Kings Mountain
• Apex
• Swain County
• Rowan County
• Boiling Spring Lakes
• Hillsborough

North Dakota

• Morton County
• Mercer County
• Dunn County

Ohio

• Jerome
• Lordstown
• Muhlenberg
• Massillon
• Plain
• Vienna
• Washington
• Ashville
• South Bloomfield
• Ironton (proposed)
• Yellow Springs (proposed)

Oklahoma

Rhode Island

Tennessee

• Nashville (proposed)
• Washington County

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

Wisconsin

• Port Washington
• Madison
• Manitowoc County
• Cassville Township
• Waterloo Township

Ambrose announced the signing of three separate leases with occupiers at modern industrial facilities in Cincinnati, Denver and Orlando, totaling over 190,000 square feet of space.

Sky Café, a subsidiary of PrimeFlight Aviation Services that provides catering logistics for commercial airlines, has leased 16,640 square feet at Building III of Ascent Commerce Center, a multi-tenant industrial park comprised of three industrial buildings in the Denver Airport submarket. The leasing agent for the park is the locally-based Cushman & Wakefield team.

OSH Cut, a manufacturing firm, leased 69,659 square feet in Building II of Cincinnati Logistics Park – Airport West, a modern, four-building, 84.77-acre industrial development in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky market. The leasing agent for the park is a local Colliers International team.

A confidential technology subsidiary of a Fortune 500 company has signed a 103,878-square-foot, full-building lease at Ambrose’s Orlando Logistics Park at LeeVista in Orlando, Florida. The leasing agent for the park is a JLL team.

Federal agencies face an April 14 deadline to submit proposals for moving their office spaces out of Washington, D.C., as part of the broader push billed as a move to cut costs and decentralize the federal government.

While D.C.-area landlords and brokers lament the potential loss of major tenants, economic development and CRE professionals elsewhere in the U.S. are energized by the possibilities. But the realities and logistics of moving massive agencies and their employees are complex, and such an operation is unprecedented. 

“This is a new arena in economic development,” said John Boyd, principal at The Boyd Co., a site selection consultancy. “So much of the focus on relocating agencies has to do with creating efficiencies and saving the taxpayer money. It also represents an economic development opportunity for markets throughout the U.S.” 

Bisnow/created with assistance of OpenAI’s DALL-E

Agencies from NASA to Customs and Border Patrol are among those being courted by politicians and others from states across the country. Federal agencies lease roughly 35M SF of office space in D.C.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has made a public push to bring the space agency’s headquarters to Cleveland, Ohio, assembling a bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers to support an effort to locate near the NASA Glenn Research Center. The Cleveland City Council sent a letter directly to Vice President JD Vance and NASA’s temporary administrator making its own appeal.

Aggressive pushes are also being made by Texas, Alabama and Florida, with the Sunshine State’s two senators introducing legislation to move NASA’s headquarters to Cape Canaveral, and local university leaders pushing the Space Coast, the site of the most rocket launches in the country.

But the process seems rushed relative to the realities of the leases in place, according to Diana Parks, executive chair of the National Federal Development Association, an industry group that leases space to government tenants.

“Have you ever packed two hours before you go into the airport?” Parks said. “You inevitably forget something. I think this is going to be one of these things that’s got a lot of issues and problems.” 

NASA itself isn’t in any rush.

“The NASA Headquarters building lease is up in 2028, and the agency is looking at options to lease a new facility in the Washington area,” NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens said in a statement to Bisnow. “In compliance with the Executive Order signed Jan. 20, NASA employees returned to full-time on-site work by no later than Friday, Feb. 28.”  

Parks said she believes any moves will take much longer than is currently recognized because the agencies lack the internal expertise to evaluate relocation options. This should be done through the General Services Administration, but the GSA has “already been decimated,” she said. 

Bisnow/Jon Banister

NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. Many states are jockeying to be the new home of the nation’s space agency.

GSA is figuring out how to cut half its staff, an aggressive culling that has led to the loss of key personnel.

“To me, it seems a little performative,” Parks said. “It’s not going to result in immediate savings or receipts that can go up on the [Department of Government Efficiency] board. And I don’t think you can honestly say how much this is going to cost, because moving federal folks with the IT and the security is not inexpensive.”

Still, excitement over the possibility of relocating agencies and creating new economic development and real estate leasing opportunities has percolated. 

Boyd talked about the potential of, say, moving the National Institutes of Health to the Research Triangle in North Carolina, moving the Department of Transportation to Austin — a center of autonomous driving — or moving the Securities and Exchange Commission to one of the “new Wall Streets” like Dallas or Charlotte.

These are all hypotheticals, but he suggested that this is how local economic development officials are thinking about this opportunity and how congressional representatives, senators and governors are lobbying the federal government. 

@LtGovJimTressel and I sent a letter to President Trump this week to show our support for relocating @NASA‘s headquarters to @NASAglenn in Cleveland. Ohio is the birthplace of aviation, the heart of America’s aerospace industry, and a critical hub for advanced technology,… pic.twitter.com/LhQ8nBQ5FG

— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) March 15, 2025

In addition to efforts by DOGE and the Trump administration to move agencies out of D.C., a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the Strategic Withdrawal of Agencies for Meaningful Placement Act, or SWAMP Act, in February to decentralize the federal bureaucracy and move agencies out of the D.C. region.

Moving an HQ could create new leasing activity in a new market, including the additional organizations that interact with the agency such as startups and lobbyists. Boyd argues a relocated agency makes that market a center of that sector’s ecosystem and adds a flood of 9-to-5 office workers to a downtown area. Those workers could also be paid at lower rates that reflect cost of living in smaller cities.

“This was a model that [Elon] Musk has successfully utilized at Tesla,” he said. “A lot of workers will simply quit or resign. They’re not going to want to make the move. They’ll be replaced by workers at the lower end of the federal pay scale.”

But the speed at which DOGE and others are moving may not be factoring in the challenges of relocating large government agencies and swapping out real estate. There is a process the GSA has to go through to buy, sell or lease property to increase competition and make sure the government gets a fair price.

Parks said she has a number of government agency clients that are residing in leased space, and when they were told that the lease was canceled, they didn’t have any place to go or money for moving equipment and signing a new lease. 

In these scenarios, called a holdover, property owners can’t evict federal agencies because there’s a clause in the lease that means the agency simply needs to pay more rent. So if an attempt is made to move an agency before they’re ready, and without the proper planning and funding, holdover situations could mean more costs to taxpayers. 

There have been other efforts to relocate federal agencies from D.C. that highlight the challenges and opportunities of such a shift. The Bureau of Land Management was ordered to move to Grand Junction, Colorado, in 2019 during Trump’s first term, only to be relocated back to D.C. after former President Joe Biden took office. The agency ultimately lost 300 workers due to the initial move. A bill in Congress seeks to make the Grand Junction move permanent. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been planning to move its headquarters to Greenbelt, Maryland, since 2023, only to have President Donald Trump vow to cancel the move. 

Parks points to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration HQ’s move to College Park, Maryland, as an example of the kind of synergies and benefits such a relocation can bring. 

The agency has a spacious new headquarters due to cheaper real estate costs outside of the capital, and it can work with surrounding universities to collaborate on research and develop future talent. But that move took years to plan and act on. 

Parks said companies that move their headquarters spend years trying to maximize their savings. Expecting a government agency to do the same on a significantly abbreviated timeline may be wishful thinking, she said.

“It just absolutely underscores how misaligned the appropriateness of making this decision before you even know how many personnel are going to be employed,” she said. “You could say I have concerns.” 

Hilco JCP, LLC, an affiliate of Hilco Real Estate, LLC and manager of Copper Property CTL Pass Through Trust, said Thursday the trust has brought to market 121 net-leased JCPenney properties located across 35 states representing more than 16 million square feet. The majority of the portfolio’s properties are located in major metropolitan areas such as Austin, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles and New York. Fifty percent of the portfolio is in the Sunbelt, including 21 in Texas.

Averaging 132,700 square feet per store, the portfolio is the subject of an absolute, triple-net long-term master lease with the sole tenant, JCPenney. The retailer is owned in a joint venture comprised of two of the largest retail mall owners in the U.S., Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management. 

Hilco JCP, LLC has chosen Newmark’s national retail capital markets team to market this portfolio. The targeted deadline for submitting offers is Feb. 26. Click here for additional information.