City and state officials, flanked by an impassioned community, publicly opposed placing a 400-megawatt data center on the site of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) in Old Town.
The data center is one idea private developer Manchester Financial Group is considering for the Old Town property. As part of the public-private partnership, Manchester will build new facilities for NAVWAR on a small portion of the property, then can redevelop the remaining 60 acres into housing, hotels, retail and commercial uses.
Because it is on federal land, the city, and by extension surrounding community members, have no input on how land in an urban, historic part of San Diego will be used, including as a possible data center.
A Manchester spokesperson recently told the Old Town Community Planning Group, which cares about maintaining the historic character of the first permanent European settlement in California, to “be prepared for something quite modern.”
Earlier Thursday, Mayor Todd Gloria signed an executive order to put a pause on building all data centers in the city. However, Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera noted that even the moratorium would not stop a data center on the Naval base because the Navy does not need to follow city zoning rules.
Elected officials lambasted the idea of a “mega” data center in urban San Diego.
Council president Joe LaCava said the proposal should be sent to the trash where it belongs.
“A data center will not add anything for San Diegans,” LaCava said. “Data centers take. They take electricity, they take water, they take jobs… They take affordability, … and they could take the highest electricity rates in the country and push them even higher.”
Assemblymember Chris Ward warned that artificial intelligence, powered by data centers, has the potential to do irreversible harm.
“(AI) is really changing a lot of things in our way of life, and really putting ourselves in some really awful, potentially compromising positions,” Ward said.
While more tempered than other speakers, Councilmember Kent Lee said the data center removes much-needed housing from military families.
“We don’t want and we don’t need a data center that will negatively affect the city’s energy grid and our rate-paying residents,” Lee said.
Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who organized the rally outside city hall, called the proposal a “monstrosity.”
“We need laws that protect San Diegans from the tidal wave of harm that data centers have brought to communities across the country, higher utility bills, dirtier air, dirtier water, and so much more,” Elo-Rivera said.
Elo-Rivera, in addition to supporting Mayor Todd Gloria’s moratorium on building new data centers that goes before the city council Monday, said he is working to draft an ordinance that would require any future data centers in the city to meet strict guidelines on using 100% renewable energy, not passing grid upgrade costs onto consumers and being located a safe distance from sensitive locations like homes and schools.
But he also explained that the city alone cannot stop a data center from being placed in Old Town. Elo-Rivera called on San Diego’s congressional representatives to lobby the Navy against the data center proposal, as well as to pass AI regulations in Congress.
The idea came to light in a Voice of San Diego article that relied on public records requests of emails to San Diego Community Power. The nonprofit utility could have made money from selling energy to the data center, while SDG&E distributed it.
Manchester Financial Group, with its Virginia-based partner Edgemoor Infrastructure and Real Estate, has been in exclusive negotiations with the Navy since 2023 after a selection process.
Elo-Rivera quoted some of the emails between the utility and the developer, including that it is “unlikely” the data center would use renewable energy and the community benefit is, “TBD,” or to be determined.
“That tells us everything we need to know about the intent of the developer, of SDG&E and the president, who would grant the authority to build such a monstrosity here in San Diego,” said Elo-Rivera.
The developer reached out because under a new California law, data centers must work with utilities to fulfill excessive energy needs, without overtaxing the grid or pushing rising energy costs onto consumers. The data center, which would be the largest in California, would use the energy equivalent of 320,000 homes, according to Voice of San Diego.
Community members were even harsher than elected officials in their calls for federal regulations on AI and for private developers to find another use of the 60 acres leased to them.
Scientist Sparky Mitra accused local developer Doug Manchester of colluding with President Trump to use “authoritarian federal jurisdiction” to bypass local input in order to build the artificial intelligence infrastructure in the center of the city in a secretive federal process.
Despite their harsh words, community members and elected officials have few paths to oppose what could be the largest data center in California. Still, Elo-Rivera struck a positive note in call-and-responses.
“We are proving that San Diego has power,” he said. “Do we have the power we need to stop this?”
“Yes,” cheered the large coalition behind him.
Tessa Balc contributed to this report.
