New 160-acre data center proposed in Sahuarita

Sahuarita Holdings, LLC, owns three parcels of land west of Sahuarita currently being scoped for a new data center development known as Project Gravel, according to documents the Star obtained through a public records request.

Project Gravel would consist of eight buildings, its own substation, roads, and parking lots. Each building is estimated to be about 203,000 square feet — about the size of 3 1/2 football fields — and, according to the project documents, would be fully built out by 2029. Each building would come online as it's completed, according to a traffic impact study.

Two of the parcels, located approximately at 2480 West Twin Buttes Rd. in unincorporated Pima County, are currently zoned for rural homesteads, which allows ranch-style properties, mobile homes, and generally has wide setback requirements to promote “rural character,” according to the Pima County zoning code.

The third parcel is zoned for general industrial use and was used as a mining and agricultural chemical plant by several companies from the early 1980s until 2006. The land has remained vacant and unused since Sahuarita Holdings, LLC bought it in 2011.

Sahuarita Holdings, LLC, is a subsidiary of Idaho-based W.R. Henderson Construction, according to Arizona Corporation Commission filings.

Contractors have been evaluating the land’s environmental state, floodplain conditions, cultural significance, and previous uses since at least August 2025, documents show.

The timeline suggests development on Project Gravel began before the county tightened its policies on non-disclosure agreements, in response to significant public backlash over Project Blue, another data center currently being built near the Pima County fairgrounds.

The Star also requested records that showed the county had entered into an NDA for this project, but that portion of the request was not fulfilled before publishing.

The Star did not receive any documents indicating potential electricity and water demand, the data center operator, expected jobs, or construction cost, which remain unclear at this time.

This is a separate project from another potential data center near the Rancho Sahuarita planned community. Residents there have organized after it was confirmed that landowner Jeremy Sharp had been having conversations with data center developers, but Sahuarita Town Council officials maintain that no official proposal has been made there yet.

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to discuss its 120-day data center moratorium at Tuesday’s meeting. If approved, all data center permitting would be paused until mid-January while the county irons out changes to its zoning code that have been in progress since the fallout from Project Blue last summer.