Some in the community of Pittsburg are pushing back against the city’s plan to build a 300,000-square-foot data center as part of a phased 76-acre redevelopment adjacent to the Contra Costa Canal.
Plans are advancing to convert a portion of Pittsburg’s long-closed Delta View Golf Course into a massive 300,000-square-foot data center complex, which would be part of a larger, three-phase development on 76 acres of land along the Contra Costa Canal, as the Concord Patch reports.
Additionally, the city of Pittsburg, which is located about 40 miles northeast of San Francisco, borders the southern edge of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and the development plan has raised environmental concerns.
The first phase of construction would include the AVAIO Perseus Data Center, a multi-level facility intended for high-capacity computing uses including AI systems, cloud services, and government and enterprise infrastructure. Officials say the project would give the city an economic boost, pointing to expanded tax revenue, construction activity, and longer-term employment opportunities, with later phases potentially layering in additional industrial and job-generating uses across the site.
According to KTVU, residents and environmental advocates are mounting opposition over projected electricity demand, water consumption, emissions, and potential strain on nearby ecosystems, including wetlands tied to the Delta corridor. The Center for Biological Diversity has also filed suit, arguing the city’s environmental review under CEQA failed to fully account for wildlife and climate impacts tied to both operations and construction.
Several residents questioned whether the development would actually produce meaningful local employment and criticized the approval process as lacking transparency. A petition opposing the project has surpassed 14,000 signatures, as of Tuesday afternoon.
The petition argues that Pittsburg should instead prioritize development that delivers broader community benefit, including parks and recreation spaces, family-oriented amenities, small business opportunities, mixed-use retail and dining, community gathering areas, and green, sustainable projects that generate more widely accessible employment and strengthen neighborhood identity and quality of life.
The city says that the data center’s power supply would be routed through infrastructure separate from the residential PG&E grid, per KTVU, a claim that did little to ease concerns among opponents who worry about broader strain on regional resources.
During public comment at a recent meeting, one resident reportedly argued that data center projects are being blocked in other parts of the country and questioned why Pittsburg should move forward with one. Nearby Oakley recently moved to ban data centers outright, underscoring how various Bay Area cities are approaching the same debate.
Related: Turns Out, Meta's AI Data Centers Use Up a Lot of Water In Addition to Electricity
Image: AVAIO
