Western Hospitality Childersburg Data Center

Talladega County, AL

Project details

Capacity 500 MW reported. Status planned. City Childersburg. County Talladega. State AL. Grid .

Overview

WHP Development is the company identified by Childersburg Mayor Ken Wesson for a proposed data-center campus on the former Alabama Ordnance Works and Alabama Army Ammunition Plant south of Birmingham. Inside Climate News reported that the City Council unanimously approved a zoning change allowing data centers as a principal use in a planned-unit development. Childersburg has fewer than 5,000 residents.

The city and WHP had an agreement in principle covering 486 acres through an approximately $17 million purchase-service agreement. The concept carried a $6 billion investment, 500 MW of capacity, glycol-based cooling, about 220 permanent jobs, and construction employment. WHP representative Joshua Harrelson attended the council meeting but declined to name the data-center firm. Wesson said he had signed a confidentiality agreement, not a nondisclosure agreement, and emphasized that nothing was finalized.

The property has an industrial and federal-cleanup history. It produced munitions and heavy water for the Manhattan Project, entered the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List in 1987, and remained subject to a groundwater investigation while the city recruited private development. A 2023 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report found worker risk if the site was not cleaned further. Those conditions form part of the public context for the rezoning and proposed land transaction.

The public map lists one map record, Western Hospitality Childersburg Data Center, 500 MW, planned. Reported campus capacity is 500 MW.

Map records

Map entries are not a physical building count; campus and building scope may differ across sources.

Related

Sources