Project dossier · Bessemer, Alabama

Project Marvel In review

$14B, 700-acre campus; rezoning delayed amid opposition from residents and county officials.

Unverified. This row has not been read against a primary source — treat it as a lead to check with the locality, not a fact to cite at a hearing.

Key facts

Operator: Logistics Land Investment
Size: 700 ac
Location: Bessemer, Alabama
Stage today: In review

Unverified

What to do next

Next step: An application is in the record. Ask the planning office for the next hearing date and request formal notice.

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What has happened so far (31 events)

2025-02-01filing
NDA covering Project Marvel becomes effective, signed by Bessemer mayor, city attorney, and chief of staff (expires February 2027); its existence only became public in July 2026. · source
2025-03-01announcement
Project Marvel first reported: a 4.5M-sq-ft, ~700-acre, 18-building hyperscale data center campus proposed for Bessemer by Logistics Land Investment LLC (affiliate of Atlanta TPA Group). · source
2025-03-18vote
Bessemer Planning and Zoning Commission votes unanimously to add data centers as a permitted zoning use, clearing a procedural path for the project. · source
2025-04-14lawsuit
Neighboring residents file suit against the City of Bessemer seeking a TRO, alleging inadequate public notice, NDA-driven lack of transparency, and threats to watercress darter/bald eagle habitat and Little Blue/Five Mile creeks. · source
2025-04-15withdrawal
Bessemer City Council pulls the Project Marvel zoning request from its meeting agenda without discussion or a vote, pausing the proposal amid the new lawsuit. · source
2025-04-16ruling
Judge David Hobdy grants a temporary restraining order halting the city rezoning process (valid for 10 days). · source
2025-04-24ruling
Judge Hobdy dissolves the TRO, allowing Bessemer to restart the project through planning and zoning; outstanding motions continued to August hearing. · source
2025-05-14coverage
Alabama Reflector reports Bessemer residents demanding answers about the proposed 4-million-square-foot data center and the secrecy surrounding it. · source
2025-06-16environmental
Inside Climate News details the threatened watercress darter fish habitat that could be affected by the data center construction and water use. · source
2025-07-14coverage
Inside Climate News reports Bessemer could face further legal action over the project environmental impacts. · source
2025-07-25coverage
Inside Climate News publishes a fact-check of competing claims (water use, jobs, tax revenue) about the proposed hyperscale data center. · source
2025-07-27coverage
Alabama Reflector examines how the proposed hyperscale data center could affect Bessemer, covering water, power, and noise concerns. · source
2025-08-07hearing
Court hearing before Judge Hobdy on the city motion to dismiss and plaintiffs motion for expedited discovery in the rezoning lawsuit. · source
2025-08-21coverage
Alabama Reflector reports the project hits a speed bump amid continued community opposition. · source
2025-11-16coverage
Alabama Reflector reports new obstacles: a conflict with the planned Northern Beltline highway route and continued endangered-fish concerns. · source
2025-11-18rezoning
Bessemer City Council votes 5-2 to adopt the rezoning ordinance converting roughly 700 acres from A-1 Agricultural to I-1 Light Industrial, approving Project Marvel over transparency and environmental objections. · source
2025-11-19coverage
Alabama Reflector and Southern Environmental Law Center report on the council approval of the rezoning despite unresolved environmental concerns. · source
2025-12-09ruling
Judge Hobdy orders plaintiffs to amend their complaint within 14 days and schedules a final hearing for March 19, 2026. · source
2025-12-10coverage
WBRC reports the ongoing lawsuit could force the city to disclose documents council members reviewed before the rezoning vote. · source
2026-01-14filing
Developer announces it will request rezoning of an additional roughly 900 acres, expanding the campus footprint and shifting it away from the Northern Beltline corridor. · source
2026-01-20announcement
City of Bessemer announces the developer is acquiring additional land to create larger residential buffer zones around the expanded campus plan. · source
2026-02-03hearing
Bessemer City Council sets a public hearing to amend the city industrial zoning ordinance for the Project Marvel expansion. · source
2026-02-18vote
Bessemer Planning and Zoning Commission votes 6-1 to recommend rezoning an additional 914 acres for light-industrial use, bringing the total campus to roughly 1,600 acres and 18 buildings (1.2GW capacity). · source
2026-03-03public-comment
Public hearing held on amending the city industrial zoning ordinance for the expanded Project Marvel footprint. · source
2026-03-19hearing
Final scheduled hearing before Judge Hobdy in the original rezoning lawsuit. · source
2026-04-21rezoning
After a public hearing where dozens of residents spoke (one called the project "an invasion"), Bessemer City Council votes 5-2 to approve rezoning of roughly 900-914 additional acres for the expanded Project Marvel campus. · source
2026-06-22ruling
Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Hobdy grants a joint stipulation of dismissal, ending the original rezoning lawsuit with prejudice. · source
2026-07-01announcement
QTS Data Centers (owned by Blackstone) confirms it is the developer behind Project Marvel, after an affiliate purchased the property in land deals worth more than $870 million. · source
2026-07-13report
Southern Environmental Law Center and Alabama Rivers Alliance publicly question the Project Marvel NDA after obtaining it via Open Records Act; NDA required officials to destroy communications with the developer. · source
2026-07-17coverage
WBRC reports on questions raised about a comparable massive QTS data center in Georgia as the company simultaneously pursues Bessemer. · source
2026-08-19report
Inside Climate News finds proposed Alabama data centers including Project Marvel could collectively use more electricity than all Alabama homes combined; Alabama Power says data centers must pay the full, fair cost to serve. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)

State environmental permits

Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.

Alabama Dept. of Environmental Management (ADEM)The program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
ADEM eFile document searchSearchable public filings — search the operator, the shell LLC on the deed, and the address.

County & town filings

The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.

Search Bessemer planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
Search Bessemer property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.

Utility & grid records

The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.

No organised market covers this statenoteThere is no public queue to read. The record is the utility's integrated resource plan and its filings at the PUC — plus FERC eLibrary for anything federally docketed.
Alabama Public Service Commission — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.

Federal databases

Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.

EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 33.400, -86.950 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.

These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.

Around here

Alabama briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Other tracked projects in Alabama

Meta Montgomery — Montgomery, 86 mi Under construction
Meta Huntsville — Toney (Madison County), 97 mi Under construction

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Project Marvel”, aigridwatch.com/projects/project-marvel-bessemer-al, retrieved 2026-10-11.

As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing

A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.

Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).