Fans that are part of a cooling system are seen on the roof of a data center April 27, 2026, in Hillsboro, Oregon. | Jenny Kane, AP
Published on May 5, 2026 at 3:50 pm
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Elected officials in St. Johns County are worried about what the rise of artificial intelligence could mean for their area.
The Board of County Commissioners agreed Tuesday for county staff to provide a briefing about the pros and cons of data centers at a future meeting. The move comes after several members of the County Commission expressed concern about the potential development of data centers in the area.
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The topic came up not because the county has received applications for data centers, but because County Commissioner Ann Taylor said she wants to get ahead of the curve.
“Right now, there’s a massive national push by tech giants to build very energy-hungry AI server farms,” Taylor said during the County Commission meeting. “We really need to get ahead of this and set some game rules before a formal proposal lands before us.”
Taylor wants to see St. Johns County adopt a stance like one that Brevard County is moving forward on. Last month, Florida Today reported that Brevard’s Board of County Commissioners agreed to draft an ordinance that would exclude AI data centers from any economic incentives or tax abatements.
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A similar challenge is in the works in the Tampa Bay area, but legality remains a question.
Data centers in St. Johns County?
Taylor made a motion to exclude AI data centers from tax breaks, and to task the county’s growth management department with narrowing where potential centers could even be built. Her motion ultimately failed.
Taylor got support from County Commissioner Krista Joseph, but Commission Chair Clay Murphy and County Commissioners Sarah Arnold and Christian Whitehurst said they did not feel as though they had enough information to make a decision on the matter.
Data centers have been around for years, but as more are being built around the country, a report from the Pew Research Center found that rural areas are often targeted as construction sites. Data centers are also a driver in the national spike in energy usage, according to data from the federal government.
Murphy said he is “not a big fan” of data centers, citing the need for massive amounts of resources to keep them running.
The centers’ need for resources limits the chance of one ever being built in the area, Murphy said.
“You have to have access to water, and then you have to have access to power, and we don’t have anywhere in St. Johns County where we have access to that kind of power,” he said. “So this is a moot point. It’s ridiculous to be fussing about data centers when I don’t think we’ll ever have a data center in St. Johns County.”
But he didn’t deny the potential economic benefits. Citing information from the Florida Association of Counties, Murphy said a single data center could net the county massive amounts of money in property taxes.
One thing county commissioners did agree on was that they wanted more information on the matter.
County Administrator Joy Andrews said she would work with her staff to bring more information about data centers to the board, but she stressed that the Board of County Commissioners has a lot of discretion over what economic incentives to hand out and that no business or industry has any entitlements at the county level.
