Arizona land developer and film producer, Anita Verma-Lallian, wants to transform 1,350-acres in Maricopa County into a data center, golf course, amusement park and the largest film studio in the country, among other things.
Maricopa County supervisors approved the zoning for the project earlier this month and Verma-Lallian expects to submit the final site plans within the next six months. If approved, she says construction could begin within two years, but plans for powering and providing water to the site remain unclear.
Verma-Lallian is CEO of Arizona Land Consulting, which owns 6,000 acres of land in Arizona valued at $1.5 billion, according to Verma-Lallian. She says about 50% of that could become large-scale data centers.
“We’ve been very focused on industrial development over the last few years,” Verma-Lallian told KJZZ. “What is helpful about that is if you’re doing a data center or film studio, or manufacturing or industrial facility, they all need essentially the same zoning.”
In 2023, Verma-Lallian opened a film production company, called Camelback Productions. According to a column Verma-Lallian wrote for Forbes, the studio looks for film projects that uplift South Asian actors.
The multi-use complex Arizona Land Consulting is planning in Tonopah, an unincorporated part of Maricopa County, features a 355-acre film production studio, the largest film lot in the county, according to Verma-Lallian.
A rendering also shows a roughly 300-acre data center and technology campus. Verma-Lallian says the data center will draw on a gigawatt of power. That’s enough energy to power around 800,000 homes for a year.
“The project started more as a film studio, and I think the data center component came later on. Why I like this for a film studio is mainly because of the location,” Verma-Lallian said. “It’s close to Burbank. It’s right off the freeway going between Phoenix and LA.”
Verma-Lallian says the data centers will be used to support AI-integrated filmmaking for Camelback Productions and other film studios, which she says will help turn movies faster. It may also support computing needs for other businesses in the area.
“Generally speaking, we do need data centers all throughout Phoenix, so that data center could likely serve more than just our development,” she said.
The project is planned within APS’ service territory, and according to Verma-Lallian, timelines for interconnection are still being negotiated. She says it's been hard to gain grid access due to high energy demands, nationwide.
“So what developers are having to do is look at temporary power solutions, bridge solutions,” she said. “Where you’re using natural gas and or solar, and you’re coming up with solutions that will get you through the first maybe two to five years.”
She says there are natural gas lines surrounding the site that could be used to power up an on-site, off-grid natural gas plant until the data center can be connected to APS’s system.
Verma-Lallian says the water needs of the data center should be easy to meet as well, because they are very low. While she did not provide a specific number for the facilities’ annual water usage, she said it would be around 5% of what a typical housing subdivision might use.
Arizona Land Consulting didn’t always develop large-scale data centers. Verma-Lallian says they’ve come to dominate 50% of their development portfolio because the water requirements are so low.
“I often find it very frustrating when a lot of people talk about how data centers are using so much water, when the exact opposite is true,” she said. “A lot of these properties would not be able to be developed right now if we were trying to build homes on them, because we just simply don’t have the water to build out those developments.”
A few years ago, her company bought a master planned community in Buckeye called Cipriani, that was planned to include 10,000 homes.
When it was determined there was not an assured 100-year water supply for the project, Arizona Land Consulting transformed the plans into a 2,000-acre, 40-building data center campus that will draw on 1.8 gigawatts of electricity. Arizona Land Consulting then sold the project to another data center developer, Tract, in 2024.
But finding timely and adequate energy supplies is now the next big challenge projects face, she says.
