Issue #2: 8 million sq ft, $40M a year, and your tax bill

Wednesday is Building the CSRA day, and there is no bigger build in the region than the one taking shape between Appling and Harlem. I spent the last few days inside county documents, public data, and the economic study so you don't have to. Here is the honest version.

Jesus, Editor at The CSRA Brief

The confirmed facts

In July, Columbia County announced Google as the sole end-user and operator of the data center campus at White Oak Technology Park, between Appling and Harlem. The site plans on file show roughly 8 million square feet across 23 buildings on about 1,900 acres. Land clearing has started. Vertical construction is expected this fall, with completion targeted around 2028. Nothing is built yet.

In August, the county's Economic Development Authority approved a nonbinding agreement with Kinetic Infrastructure Solutions, an Alphabet subsidiary. The headline term: $40 million a year for 7 years, or $280 million total, flowing mostly to the county's general fund and toward property tax relief. Nonbinding is the key word. A final, binding deal is still being negotiated.

The county also wrote the rulebook first. Its December 2025 data center ordinance bans aquifer wells, requires closed-loop cooling, caps noise at 65 decibels at the property line, and sets 500-foot buffers where the campus meets homes or farmland. Augusta followed with its own ordinance on September 15, after a three-month moratorium.

Two other campuses to know: QTS is building Project Eisenhower at 2883 Gordon Highway in Augusta, six buildings totaling about 2.15 million square feet next to the Haynes Station neighborhood, with the first building possibly running in 2027. And a smaller 60,000-square-foot site was approved in Graniteville, South Carolina, expected to employ six people full time.

The money, carefully

You will see $17 billion attached to this project. That is the county's working number, repeated across announcements and national outlets. No independently audited construction figure has been published, so treat it as the county's estimate, not a verified spend.

The $40 million a year is more concrete, and here is why it matters to homeowners: Columbia County currently collects about $25 million a year in homestead property taxes. The stated goal is to use Google's payments to eliminate the county portion of homestead tax bills. The legal path runs through HB 439, a new state law, plus a November referendum and a statewide constitutional amendment that would lift an $18,000-per-household cap on the relief. If it all passes, the relief would land on 2027 tax bills.

The honest caveat: the payments run seven years. The buildings are permanent. And county assessments have been rising fast enough that some homeowners report $20,000 to $80,000 jumps, which could swallow the relief. Whether the deal outlasts its own term is unknowable until the binding agreement is public.

The jobs, honestly

Data centers are famously light on permanent staff. The real employment story is construction: hundreds to low thousands of skilled-trades jobs over a multi-year build, with general contractors already holding job fairs and a workforce pipeline being built with Augusta Technical College, local schools, and Fort Gordon.

Permanent operations will number in the hundreds, not the thousands. QTS expects 160 to 200 permanent jobs at Eisenhower at an average salary around $70,000. A Brookings analysis found a typical county gains about 100 to 200 data-processing and telecom jobs in the decade after its first large data center. Google points to its Douglas County facility, operating since 2003, where it says hundreds of people are on site on a typical day.

The bottom line: the payoff is construction jobs plus a bigger tax base, not a hiring boom. Anyone implying otherwise is selling something.

What people are worried about

Water is the top concern, and the county knows it. The ordinance bans wells and requires closed-loop cooling, and the county has said the developer pays for roughly $80 million in water system work. Still, residents near Appling and Harlem remember the early days, when quiet land deals and nondisclosure agreements damaged trust. The county manager has since acknowledged the process started too quietly.

Other live concerns: whether power bills stay flat after Georgia Power's rate pledge expires in 2028, generator noise near homes, property values for the Greenpoint residents who bought expecting shops and restaurants next door, and whether the rules have real enforcement teeth.

What is still unknown: the final binding terms, how much power the campus will actually draw (never disclosed), the final building count (sources say 23, 29, or up to 33), who ends up operating the Pumpkin Center site, and whether the November referendum passes.

If you own a home in Columbia County, the November referendum is the vote that touches your wallet. Read the ballot language when it is published and decide for yourself whether seven years of relief is worth a permanent neighbor. Everyone else: treat the $17 billion figure and the job promises like a halftime score. Directionally exciting, not final.

New to the area and trying to figure out where these towns even are? Our newcomer guide and the town-by-town comparison will get you oriented.

A quiet week on post: no new mission moves or construction announcements. Two notes: the Google workforce pipeline includes Fort Gordon in its hiring plans, and Amentum filed notice cutting 77 intelligence-support positions at the fort after losing a contract, reported September 14.

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