Yaphank warehouse complex could become $1 billion data center campus

Three vacant Yaphank warehouses could be folded into a data center campus backed by as much as $1 billion, turning a long-planned industrial site into one of Suffolk County’s most closely watched land-use tests. The Brookhaven Digital Infrastructure Facility would occupy about 549,000 square feet and use a closed-loop cooling system meant to reduce water use, but it would also bring the kind of steady electrical demand that has made data centers a flash point across Long Island.

For Brookhaven, the central tradeoff is straightforward. Reusing an existing warehouse complex avoids the land-clearing footprint that comes with a new industrial build, but it still raises questions about power supply, utility upgrades, noise, traffic and how much large-scale digital infrastructure eastern Suffolk can absorb. On the site’s earlier industrial plan, the Town of Brookhaven Industrial Development Agency approved incentives in 2023 for WF Industrial XII LLC’s Brookhaven Logistics Center, a project described as three industrial buildings totaling about 550,000 square feet on a 42.1-acre portion of a 71.4-acre parcel west of Sills Road on the north side of the Long Island Expressway North Service Road.

That logistics proposal was expected to create 170 full-time and 21 part-time permanent jobs, and its 12-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes deal began at $40,448 in the first year before rising to $2.11 million by the end of the term. Those figures give the public a baseline for what the site had been pitched to deliver as a warehouse complex, even as the new data center plan is being framed around higher-value technology investment and construction activity instead.

The zoning and environmental review process around the broader Yaphank corridor is already moving. The Town of Brookhaven accepted a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Brookhaven Logistics Center, LLC at Yaphank, and town notices set a public hearing for March 26, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. in the Brookhaven Town Auditorium in Farmingville on a requested change of zone from A Residence 1 and L Industrial 1 to L Industrial 1 for property on Horseblock Road. Town and environmental records also describe a much larger Brookhaven Logistics Center footprint of roughly 228 acres along Horseblock Road.

The political backdrop has become more cautious. In late May, a false AI-generated flyer stirred fears of a data center hearing and vote in Yaphank, prompting Town Supervisor Dan Panico to say there were no pending applications and no planned vote at that time. Local discussions have also turned to an 18-month moratorium on AI data centers, reflecting worries about electric rates, water supplies, noise, pollution and grid strain.

That wider grid concern is not just local rhetoric. NYISO has said high-tech, AI and data center projects are affecting future electric demand and load growth in New York, underscoring why even a warehouse reuse in Yaphank is being treated as a major policy decision for Suffolk County.