AURORA | On the heels of a community uproar over a proposed data center in northeast Aurora, the city is reviewing a second proposal for a 1-million square foot data center near the Aurora Highlands neighborhood.
A development application submitted by Aerotropolis Industrial Development envisions a 1-million square-foot, 11-building data center on a 500-acre site south of East 48th Avenue, north of 26th Avenue, east of Aerotropolis Parkway and west of Monaghan Road.
The project is early on in the development process, so details such as how much power the data center will require and its planned water usage are unclear. The 500-acre data center site would be part of a larger master plan known as the Aerotropolis Logistics Center, which totals more than 1,200 acres and will include an industrial area on the east side and residential and mixed use development on the west.
“The site plan for the Aerotropolis Logistics Center (ALC) is still in its very early stages — the structure and layout of the site are subject to change,” City spokesperson Jennifer Soules said. “The application was determined to be incomplete and has not been accepted for review at this time.”
In addition to the 1-million square-foot Aerotropolis, a nearby site may also host a 300,000 square-foot data center for NTT Global Data Centers, though NTT has not submitted a development application to the city. An incentive agreement for NTT says the 300,000 square-foot data center would be on a 76-acre site in the Aerotropolis Logistics Center.
“We are unable to confirm that NTT is part of the ALC plan as submitted, as NTT is not specified by name in the plan. However, we do know that NTT hopes to develop in the area and entered into an incentive agreement with the city late last year,” Soules said.
Despite not having a development application, the NTT data center received tax incentives through an October 2025 agreement approved by the city council. The data center is eligible for $13.5 million in tax incentives over 10 years so long as the facility supports 27 jobs with salary requirements.
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.
A separate project, the Trident data center on East 48th Avenue, recently garnered community outrage for its proximity to the Windler and Green Valley Ranch neighborhoods, including a senior housing development called The Reserve.
Like the Trident project, the Aerotropolis project is in Airport District zoning, which allows data centers as a use by right, which means the project can be approved administratively by the city without a public hearing, unless the project requests a variance.
The Aerotropolis data center would border the Aurora Highlands neighborhood.
A third data center project has started the development application process with the city but has not yet submitted any application or plans, so the proposed location and details are not available in public documents.
The city’s development portal shows the project would be a 1.5 million square-foot data center campus on 260 acres, but does not include a location.
City council is currently considering several regulations for future data centers, including a moratorium on data center tax incentives and a buffer around residential areas, and on Monday passed a prohibition on evaporative cooling, a type of water-intensive cooling system.
New regulations could apply to the Aerotropolis and NTT data centers because neither project has been accepted for review, Soules said. The regulations would have to pass before the data centers have submitted a complete application.