A planned data center project in Florida is being held back by the city’s lack of available water.. Local press, including Fox, The Lakeland Ledger, and BayNews9, report that Cielo’s plan to develop a data center in Haines City is being delayed by the city’s limited water capacity.. – Cielo.
Haines is a city in Polk County, east of Tampa and south of Bay Lake.. Cielo’s planned project, along Marion Road and State Road 544-East, would reportedly require up to 150,000 gallons (681,913 liters) of water a day. The company aims to develop a 300MW campus on around 74 acres..
Haines has been growing quickly in recent years and was already facing capacity issues with its water infrastructure. City officials are said to have been asking Southwest Florida Water Management District for permission to use more water since 2022.. More than 10,000 single-family and multifamily residential units have been built in Haines since 2020, with its population increasing by around 40 percent between 2019 and 2024..
City officials told BayNews that Haines has the capacity to produce ten million gallons of water a day but uses just over seven million. It is requesting to increase its permit to 16.42 million to keep up with growth and has added another 150,000 gallons to the request to account for Cielo’s plans..
Cielo approached Haines officials about its plans last year. City officials have not received formal development applications for the data center project yet.. Cielo didn’t provide a comment to Fox..
Founded in 2023, Cielo was previously owned by Texas-based investment manager Arroyo Investors via its Arroyo Energy Investors Fund IV. Arroyo lists its investment in Cielo as realized in March 2026.. Cielo is targeting projects in South Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois, Colorado, Missouri, Texas, Minnesota, and Iowa..
The company was previously developing a large campus in Virginia’s Culpeper County, though this has since been sold and taken over by Edgecore.. At the time of writing, Cielo’s website is down.. DCD has reached out to Cielo for comment..
More in Construction & Site Selection. More in North America. 09 Mar 2026.
03 Mar 2026
