Okay. Well, thank you, Ben. My name is Ron Smith. I'm the city manager in Statesville, North Carolina. We are kind of the northern outpost of the Charlotte, metro region. We're about forty five minutes, probably to Downtown Charlotte, directly north. And we're about equidistant to Winston Salem, which is to our east. So, we're we're smack dab in, in the the Piedmont, you know, kind of butting butting up to the foothills. Statesville has we're probably about 32,000 people. A much higher daily population. We're the county seat and, so our population grows quite a bit during the day. And, yeah, just, you know, provide, you know, all, you know, city services. We have an airport, public powers that are a member of electricities, have our own electric utility, you know, and, you know, just, you know, sometimes play, second bill to our, neighbors to the south, Mooresville, but, good, you know, good relationship there, but in a growing county for sure.

Yeah. So we have we actually had two data center requests. One stalled out, pretty pretty quickly. But the other one, which is Compass Data Centers, has gone through the entitlement process. So they've gone through rezoning, and annexation. They have closed on the property, so they've they've purchased the property. They've They've been in Extinn. They are in conversations with us now about, sewer extension, which is actually part of a bigger project, working through Duke Power for their power needs. And, we actually have been talking to them about presubmittal, to go to our technical review committee. So they're they're very far down the road, in in getting ready to, you know, break ground, hopefully, sometime very soon. In

Well, Compass, so they're a specific project. They're gonna build five buildings in Statesville, and, they're gonna be over a million square feet total. So, gonna be five, you know, 250,000 200 to 250,000 square foot buildings each. They're gonna be on a piece of property that's about 300 acres and, basically, gonna make an investment. We don't know specifically what that will be at this point, But somewhere north of $1,000,000,000, we've heard numbers as high as 10,000,000,000. I don't think we're there, but, you know, but I'm gonna just say 1,000,000,000. And so Compass data centers, one of the things that we have really liked about them is that they're what I would call a turnkey or a full scale, you know, owner of the property. So they will they have been talking to us from the beginning, and they will take it from the property purchase and the entitlement process. They will build the building. They will own the building and lease out to the end users. So what we've looked at with Compass as, you know, in this case, such a benefit is that we're gonna be dealing with one organization or one company from a to z. So they're they're investing in us and, therefore, made the process easier for us to invest in them.

As I understand it so we've worked this through our we have a countywide economic development corporation. So we've worked that through our local EDC, and we we kind of partner with them. They're they're basically an extension of our staff as well as the counties and Mooresville's to the south. So we've worked with the EDC from the get on this. And so Compass had they came to us. And, the other company that I mentioned earlier were they were also they also came to us through the EDC. As I understand it, not just anywhere is, you know, geographically speaking, is ready or or, you know, available for a data center. And it's primarily because of power usage and the requirements there. So what we found out through this process is that Statesville is one of those communities that based on our location, based on high transmission lines and the availability of another substation that will be pulled off of, for this one, we're sitting in a really good spot. So we didn't go looking for them. They came looking for us. And we've just been fortunate enough to to, you know, see it through and fortunate enough, I think, that, you know, we got the right company for us, going back to what I mentioned earlier, in that they're gonna be with us for the long

Well, it's been, it's been basically utilities and the entitlement process. So so we we had to go through a, the rezoning for the property, because this was located in the county. It was in a rural, agricultural district. And as you would expect, if you're bringing it into the city, it's gotta be zoned to light industrial. So that was quite a process. And that's where, communities, I think, around the state and probably around the country are dealing with, you know, the public opposition that they're seeing to these rezonings. We so we were fortunate in that the site that they chose is located at right on the interstate. It's a farm. It was a working farm until it closed or the where they bought the property. I think it was back in January is when they closed. So, 300 plus acre farm, not a lot of neighbors adjacent to the interstate, and we had utilities that were approximate to the site. So there were some extensions that are gonna need to be made, but they're not, you know, they're not, over the top. They're pretty easy to make. So going through that process, we used, conditional zoning process to, to facilitate this. And that was that really helped us, because we're it it adds another layer of public engagement to the, to the rezoning. And what we did is we used that to kind of as an iterative process where every time we had meetings, with the public, we would get we would get the information that was presented, you know you know, fact check it or truth it and then provide that to our city council. If we had questions, we would take it to the C or take it to Compass. We really tried to use that that the rezoning process to our advantage, but also to make our council educated and really not so they weren't gonna be surprised. So we used that conditional use or conditional zoning process to get it through and approved and then really just had to go through the annexation process. They have yet to request incentives or economic incentives from us. I frankly do not think that they're going to because, generally speaking, when you're through the process, you know the project is coming and and the incentives usually are asked on the front. So I think we're pretty, we're we're pretty certain that that's not gonna happen.

I mean, to be honest with you, it's transformational for for us. Our our tax base is roughly is around 5,000,000,000 now. So, you know, this could be you know, this could add, you know, a fifth of that to entirely, you know, doubling it. So just depending on what kind of investment they make. So, it's a very big, you know, influx of property tax revenues coming to us, not to mention the fact that because of the five building configuration that they have, usually, these data centers don't provide a lot of jobs. But because of how they're doing this, we're gonna get a a higher number than you generally would. It's still not gonna be more than, say, 200 or so. But they're also gonna be high paying jobs, and and, you know, that that's good for us as well.

That's a great question. And you name it, and we've heard it through this process. And, the so so one thing that this the specifics about this is the the biggest the biggest drain on resources is going to be energy, and and there's no doubt there. However, you know, Duke Power is providing that that the power to the site. Our philosophy has been it the it's gonna come somewhere. And if this is, you know, if this is built into the bigger rate structure of Duke Power, then why wouldn't that be in Statesville? But that said, we were also looking at it from the fact that they're not gonna use a lot of sewer, which is a big deal for us. They're really not gonna use a lot of water, which has been a big concern for for, residents that it was gonna, you know, use precious water supplies that we that we don't, you know, that we may not have, which fortunately for us, we do. But it may drain the water table or the aquifer, things of that nature. But truth be told, Compass is using a closed it's a it's an enclosed cooling system, water cooling system that they're they're recycling water. So they're not using a ton of water from the city of Statesville and certainly not from Wells. So we felt like the impact from an environment environmental standpoint was pretty, for a for a project of this size was pretty minimal. Most of the complaints that we received were from residents outside of the city. Those were the negative comp you know, the negative, or the negativity that came with the project. There was mostly positivity coming from those within the city limits because the messaging was that this was going to ultimately be a, you know, a a large economic development project that was gonna help with with future revenues. The city council nor did the or the staff didn't discount the concerns of, the resident, you know, the outside the city residents or the county residents. But we tried to take them in cons and put them in perspective Because a lot of what we were hearing was, well, this is a loss of farmland. There's not gonna be habitat for for, you know, animals and, you know, a lot of people talked about, well, we used to go play on this farm and things of that nature. In in the grand scheme of things, yeah, are those negatives? Probably so. But there are so much you know, they were outweighed by the positives that the city was gonna have. Also, if you're looking at a million or a billion plus in investment, that not only helps the city from a revenue standpoint, it's helping the county as well. In a fast growing county like Iredell, they're having, you know, issues with, you know, school building and things of that nature. This is the type of project that helps to solve those problems. So, you know, we just looked at it as a benefit to everyone, but we took it very seriously. We took the we took the concerns very seriously, and we really tried to find the real answers to any of the problems, any of the concerns that were brought up, and we would answer those. We would get the the answers through the EDC. We would we would fact check those ourselves and provide those to the city council. So when we got to that level of their when they were going through that process, they weren't surprised by what they were hearing, and they had facts to back up what was, in many cases, hyperbole coming from the public, which, you know, I would say six out of 10, of the comments we got. It's not that they were untrue. They may not have been applicable, or they may have been off base somewhat. So we just really tried to help educate our council to make that right decision.

educated decision. I'm sorry.

Good and bad, I guess. We we really struggled. We didn't want it to seem like there was a decision made before the council went into the room because it really wasn't. You know, we we just tried to give them the right information to make, a fact based decision. It was still gonna be up to the city council. We had people in the room, that you know, the night of the public hearing that said it was already a done deal and things of that nature. And you're always gonna hear that type of thing at a controversial rezoning. Mhmm. But it, you know, it certainly it it you know, the door swung both ways. But it was really on our staff's shoulders to make sure that with a project of this magnitude that the facts were considered, because many times, you just don't get the opportunity to present the facts and and, you know, the, again, the hyperbole and the and the and the emotions are are what carry the day.

Well, I would really, you know, I would keep it simple and and use your conditional zoning process because the tools are there to, to get public input at every, you know, at every turn. Use the public input not only to educate the yourself and the city council, but use the public input to make a better project. Because if you're in a community meeting and concerns come up about, you know, one particular issue that can be addressed by the end user, in our case, Compass, see if they can build it into their plan. We we did that. You know, they they made amendments to their plan to accommodate, you know, some some comments from the public. Can't do it for everything. But use that conditional zoning process to to the city or town's benefit and, because because it it lays it all out there for you. I would also say use your your EDC, or your economic developers. We leaned on them to do a lot of research for us to, again, make sure that this was a fact based decision. And, you know, they again, I'm being an extension of our staff. Use them for what they're there for. And then finally, the public will forecast their questions. You know, it through, social media, have have somebody on your staff monitor what's being said, because you're only educating yourself on on what you expect. And, use that as best practice, and that that also helps with, you know, again, answering the questions before they're at a public hearing when you come out where everybody's surprised.

Yeah. Great question. We did not actively engage. So we we would you know, we signed up for some of these sites that were, you know, kind of organically, created, just to just to monitor, just to understand what people's concerns were and then how to address them. But we didn't we weren't an active participant in the conversations. I think that that probably would have gone pretty negatively, at the end of the day. We we just in general, we try to stay away from that on any issue. We let the comp we we'll we'll put out the information, and then we'll, you know, we'll get the comments and maybe address them offline or something like that.

We talked about it a little bit. I I think that that the type of project that comes to town is important. We were fortunate that Compass again, getting back to the being the owner and it gonna be the owner from here on out, that they will lease to the end user. That was beneficial for us because they have a track record that they could point back to. They could commit to certain things that a spec developer may not be able to commit to. So the type of project is really, really important. We I I mentioned early on, we had we really had two running on parallel paths. And, ironically, they were on peep on adjacent properties. And so the other one was a little bit of ahead of Compass, and they they dropped out. I feel like a lot of the questions that were answered by Compass and through our process may not have been answered by the the the other project, which was a spec, And it may not have gone as well as the Compass project was. And in fact, maybe could have gone so poorly that Compass couldn't gotten approved. So I think the type of project that you have is very important. Now it's hard to say we want this versus, you know, this type versus this type because they're coming to you more often than not. But if you can be discerning, that's what you want, that's what you wanna see. I would also say, ask your EDC, are we in an area that we should be pursuing these types of things? And if so, begin the process before anybody has you on their radars. You start preparing for, okay. Well, here are some areas this could happen. Here are the questions that we need to answer. Are we ready from a power, sewer, water perspective? And get yourself prepared for it. Because once they hit, the, you know, the community is gonna be, you know, not in an uproar. That's probably too strong. But, you know, it it it's good everybody's gonna be very excited, good and bad, and you need to be ready to run with it when it comes your way.

Well, yeah. Hopefully, it's a groundbreaking sometime pretty soon. You know, they're going through the plans review process now. They're with the city, and then that'll go to the county immediately afterward when they have construction plans. So, as far as I know, they are ready to get to get going. The kind of more on the civic side of things, you know, we had conversations with them on the very front side of this about, you know, their being a good corporate citizen and, you know, helping in certain ways, you know, to, you know, to build a better city, so to speak, and to be part of what we do from a chamber and, you know, other organizations, nonprofits, things of that nature. So we're we're hoping and and really expecting that once they get established and up and running, they're gonna play a role in a lot of things that we do.

Yeah. Thank you, Ben. And I hope it was I I hope it was beneficial.