AURORA | Mayor Mike Coffman is calling for a planned data center to be stopped after intense backlash from the local community who said they were blindsided by the project and raised concerns about health and environmental impacts.
In a Facebook post, Coffman said he plans to call the Trident data center up for a vote by city council and will ask his colleagues to vote against the project, “regardless of the litigation risk that the city may face by the data center developer.”
“There are multiple new home developments that are also too close to the proposed data center,” Coffman said in his post, saying it “must not go forward.”
Coffman can’t call up the data center until it receives approval, according to city spokesperson Jennifer Soules.
The next city council meeting, when Coffman could call up the data center, is scheduled for Oct. 12.
Though Coffman previously voted against a data center moratorium, it could come up again at a future meeting. Coffman has also suggested a moratorium on tax incentives for data centers, which has not yet been discussed by council.
The Trident data center is a planned 860,000 square feet facility at 23001 East 48th Ave., which is located in Airport District zoning that allows data centers as a use by right, meaning the project can be approved administratively by the city without a public hearing, unless the project is requesting a variance.
While Trident is not requesting a variance, city spokesperson Jennifer Soules said the city is working with the developer, Vantage Data Centers, to schedule a community meeting because of the amount of public interest, but a date has not yet been set.
At the Sept. 28 city council meeting, dozens of public commenters spoke for more than three hours to share their opposition and misgivings about the data center and its approval process.
A development application and site plan for the data center were first submitted in August 2025 and the project is on its fourth round of reviews, according to the city development portal. The project’s fourth submission is due by Oct. 26.
The data center is expected to use 334 megawatts of energy for computing capacity, which would be more than twice the state’s current largest data center — the 160 megawatt QTS facility, also in Aurora. The facility would use a closed-loop cooling system, which is less water intensive than other cooling systems, and it’s expected to have 28 emergency generators, as well as battery energy storage.
Power companies report that 1 megawatt of electricity could power between 500-1,000 homes for an hour or around 300 homes per day, depending on a variety of factors, such as power use and home size.
Facility plans include setbacks that will provide at least a 350-foot buffer from homes, as well as a brick wall and water-wise landscaping surrounding the property. Aurora also restricts the noise level at data centers to the same level as other businesses, with different allowances based on zoning and time.
Under an agreement with the city approved in June 2025, Vantage could receive up to $38.9 million in tax incentives over 10 years if the facility provides 50 jobs at a minimum salary level. Soules said the incentives are given annually after the company submits a report showing they meet the requirements and if they have not been met, the incentives are not paid out.
Following the 2025 city council election, the council has been less friendly to data centers and is currently considering several regulations for future facilities, including a moratorium on data center tax incentives and a buffer around residential areas.
None of the regulations, including the ban on evaporative cooling passed Sept. 28, would apply to the Trident data center because its application has already been accepted by the city. The regulations could apply to two other data centers which recently started the development process.