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.
Why is it that all these companies seek to gift their largese to Aurora? What is it about Aurora, in particular, that makes us a desireable location for these centerrs when other industries eschew us? Is it that Council is for sale to them just as they haver always been for sale to real estate developers?
It is a little ironic to see complaints about data centers posted on this webpage, Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok. Those platforms, along with email, online banking, streaming, shopping and much of modern life, all depend on data centers. Shut down the data centers and the “cloud” becomes a very expensive fog.
That does not mean every proposed location is appropriate. Neighbors have legitimate concerns about scale, appearance, power demand, water use and proximity to homes. Those questions deserve straight answers before any project moves ahead.
But a site in the airport-area industrial corridor, within the Denver airport’s noise contours and surrounded by industrial development rather than established neighborhoods, is exactly the sort of place Aurora should be considering for this use. The proposed Aerotropolis project is still early and incomplete, so the city should require clear standards and full disclosure on impacts. But the location itself makes far more sense than putting this kind of facility next to existing residential neighborhoods.
I agree with Concerned, and I would take the argument one step further.
Publius asks why these companies want Aurora. The answer is not the council. It is open land near DIA, fiber, highway access, and Airport District zoning that already allows data centers by right. Every generation builds the infrastructure its economy runs on. First trading posts, then ports, then rail depots, then airports, then the internet. Towns the railroad bypassed often faded while the next town grew. Data centers, and the power to run them, are this generation’s version. China is building both at a pace we are not matching. These facilities will be built somewhere. The question for Aurora is whether they are built well, on terms the public can see.
Two facts in this story matter more than the general location debate.
First, this site is not purely industrial. The 1,200-acre master plan puts industry on the east side and homes on the west, and the article says the data center would border Aurora Highlands. The airport corridor is the right area. Within it, the buildings belong on the east side, against the noise contours, with a real buffer facing homes. The city can still require that layout, because the application has not been accepted.
Second, under use-by-right zoning these projects can be approved without a public hearing. That is where much of the anger comes from. The council does not need to stop data centers. It needs to publish the conditions before the next application arrives: a residential buffer, a cooling standard (Monday’s ban on evaporative cooling is a good start), full disclosure of power and water use at application, and a rule that the data center customer pays for the new power lines and generation it requires, not every other household on the utility bill.
One more point. The NTT incentive is $13.5 million for 27 jobs. That is $500,000 per job. Data centers come mainly for power, land and fiber, not tax breaks. The proposed pause on incentives makes sense, and that money would do more in the roads and utilities that make the whole corridor work.
Clear rules make Aurora a better place to invest, not a worse one. Developers want a predictable answer. Neighbors want to know the terms. Both can have what they want.
Michael Canon, Castle Pines
Former Chief Commercial Officer, Dubai World Central; co-author with John D. Kasarda of the forthcoming The Aerotropolis Imperative