OKEECHOBEE- The controversial Okee-One data center project is no longer happening according to information shared at the April 23 Okeechobee County Commission meeting.
Following public comments on proposed amendments to the Okeechobee County Comprehensive Plan which included a Special Technology Opportunity Center option to allow for and encourage development of data centers, Commissioner Burroughs revealed that he had learned the Okee-One project would not be moving forward.
Commissioner Burroughs said that he reached out to Florida Commerce Secretary Alex Kelly after a report in the Tampa Bay Times stated that he had declined to fund Indian River State College’s application for a second round of funding for Okee-One and accused the college of misleading state officials about the project.
“Here’s the bottom line,” said Commissioner Burroughs. “IRSC will return almost 50 percent of the money that was in the Rural Infrastructure Funds to the state. The data center is not going to be built.”
“He (Secretary Kelly) said they had some issues with the contract with IRSC and some of the things that have been going on have violated that contract so they are going to shut down the grant and that data center will not be built,” Commissioner Burroughs concluded.
IRSC was able to procure the property for the planned data center in 2023. The Okeechobee County Economic Development Corporation made acquiring the Boys’ School property one of its top priorities starting back in 2021 and in 2022, the Economic Development Corporation, IRSC and the County worked together to obtain the property from the state.
Governor Ron DeSantis awarded IRSC $1.5 million in Rural Infrastructure Funds in Dec. 2024 to help site preparation for the data center. But this week, in a report from the Tampa Bay Times, officials in the DeSantis administration appeared to accuse the college of deceiving state officials into funding the campus.
“After further review, it became clear that (the college)’s plans, much like the data center industry around the nation, is based on falsehoods and pretenses about energy and water,” Commerce department spokesperson Emily Hetherington said in an email to the Tampa Bay Times.
According to the report the state declined IRSC’s application for a second round of funding for the Okee-One project. Adding that state officials “will provide no financial support, in any business development projects related to data centers on that site and anywhere else in the state.”
The project's cancelation comes after massive pushback against the proposed data center.
