Apex Moves Toward One-Year Data Center Moratorium After Developer Withdraws Project

The Apex Town Council voted March 10 to instruct staff to draft a one-year moratorium on new data center construction and permitting, a direct response to the withdrawal of a massive proposed campus that had drawn months of fierce opposition from New Hill residents.

Natelli Investments, a Maryland firm, had sought to build the New Hill Digital Campus on roughly 189 acres of former farmland adjacent to the Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant in the unincorporated New Hill community, about 22 miles southwest of Raleigh. Initial filings in September described the proposal as a 250-megawatt complex, while later coverage by WUNC and The News & Observer characterized the project as a 300-megawatt campus envisioning four 70-foot-tall server facilities and, according to Triangle Business Journal reporting, approximately 80 backup generators rated at 3 megawatts each. WTVD's I-Team reported the project could have generated at least $4 million for the area.

The company withdrew its annexation and rezoning applications late last week before the council's March 10 meeting. General Manager Michael Natelli told ABC11 the company was stepping back "while the Town continues its deliberations over zoning ordinance changes necessary to permit data center development within the Town's limits," and added that Natelli Investments would "determine an appropriate course of action" if Apex ultimately approves a zoning text amendment allowing data centers. In an October interview with The News & Observer, Natelli had defended the site as uniquely suited for such a facility. "If you're not going to do a data center here, I don't know where else you do one," he said, adding: "And I recognize that despite me feeling that, people are not going to want it no matter what."

Mayor Pro Tem Terry Mahaffey introduced the moratorium motion at Tuesday's council meeting, framing it as essential breathing room to overhaul the town's zoning framework. "I would ask the council to consider at this time putting forward a one-year moratorium to provide clarity," Mahaffey said. "Staff can work exclusively on developing rules for data centers. We need the time and space to develop these rules." In a Facebook post reported by The News & Observer, Mahaffey elaborated: "This will give us the time we need to finish the work that we started. To update the UDO, to put firm rules in place to ensure that any future applicants not harm the health, the well-being, or the quality of life of any existing Apex resident."

Resident Michelle Hoffner O'Connor, who spoke against the project at the March 10 meeting, captured the mood among opponents. "Relief is the first thing that comes to mind," she told ABC11. "I think we need regulations. I think there are a lot of conversations this has created."

The council's vote was procedural: it directed staff to prepare draft moratorium language, not to enact one. Under North Carolina law, implementing a development moratorium requires specific legal procedures and formal findings before it can take effect. WUNC reported the draft could return to the council for an official vote as soon as April. Town leaders are also weighing the creation of a resident advisory committee to study the industry's infrastructure impacts, a separate step discussed at the March 10 session.

The scale of what was proposed helps explain the concern. According to the International Energy Agency, as reported by The News & Observer, a 100-megawatt data center uses as much water as roughly 2,600 U.S. households; the News & Observer noted the Natelli project sought three times more power than that baseline. Mahaffey acknowledged the developer's urgency was itself a complicating factor: "They had an aggressive timetable that our process may not have worked for them," he told WTVD, "but Apex is still going to move forward and look into this issue and develop some rules around data centers."

Apex is not alone in hitting pause. Neighboring Chatham County approved its own 12-month moratorium on data center permitting in February, and the town of Tarboro rejected a proposal from Energy Storage Solutions in December. The resistance is playing out against a backdrop of significant statewide demand: North Carolina is projected to roughly double its data center capacity to 6 gigawatts over the next decade, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors Carolinas report, with a February JLL analysis describing the state as part of a "secondary wave" of markets drawing increased developer interest. Natelli's withdrawal statement left the door open, signaling the company's intent to monitor whether Apex's zoning eventually accommodates facilities like the one it had envisioned for New Hill.