Board gives Google data center low marks

Apr. 15—Under pressure from public opposition to data centers, tech companies have recently upped their design games for new data centers in Mesa.

Utah-based Novva Data Centers proposed a data campus on Ellsworth and Warner roads with a public trail, rainwater harvesting, a rammed earth office building and wall art.

EdgeCore submitted plans for a data campus of 95-foot buildings at Elliot and Everton Terrace with murals facing Elliot and two large sculptures in prominent locations.

It's an attempt to improve the look of what have historically been bland tilt-up concrete buildings. Councilman Scott Somers has urged the companies to embrace a "design aesthetic for the 21st century."

But in Mesa's emerging data center beauty pageant, Google is falling behind.

The company is preparing to begin the second phase of its $1 billion data center campus on the northwest corner of Elliot and Sossaman roads, and the Design Review Board was less than enthused with its plans last week.

"I wish there was going to be some better architecture or articulation in the screen wall. It looks very institutional," Board Chair Scott Thomas said.

"I don't feel like this is matching with the standard that we see even in our industrial work," board member Paul Johnson said.

The first data center on the three-phase, 187-acre Google data campus broke ground last year. The forward progress of this project seemed to energize Mesa's already hot data center scene.

Because Google's project is within an Employment Opportunity Zone overlay, each phase only requires an administrative review for approval.

But the company must still take its plans to the Design Review Board for feedback, and the board last week made the most of its opportunity to weigh in.

Phase two of Google's Project Red Hawk includes an approximately 250,000-square-foot data hall that is almost a carbon copy of the first data hall under construction. The company claims these data halls will be 100% air cooled.

Google also submitted plans for a one-story office building.

The campus is surrounded by a 10-foot perimeter wall with a secured entrance and guard shack.

In a presentation on phase two, a city planner noted that as part of a development agreement with the city, Google agreed to design guidelines and enhanced landscaping, and the plans complied with those requirements.

The planner highlighted the awnings and metal fins used to add interest to the concrete building — one that will be largely out-of-view to the public behind the tall perimeter wall.

There will also be "strategic lighting that adds an ... architectural element to the design of the building," the planner continued.

When the Design Review Board considered the first phase of Google's data center project last year, the industrial building's aesthetics didn't garner a lot of comment.

Board member Dane Astle called it "a nice approach to what we often see as a fairly large, concrete-type building."

This time around, the board took a dimmer view to the aesthetics.

"If I was making comments on this, as a phase one project, I'd have a lot of comments," Johnson said. "But you're phase two, and you're locked into a design. We're matching the existing architecture."

One major point of criticism was the flat exterior wall. Some members didn't think the fins and awnings did enough to break up the mass.

"I think it's too flat," Johnson said. "The architectural moves feel like just ... appendages."

Board members were also in some disbelief at exterior drain spouts. The design board regularly admonishes builders of warehouses, factories and other concrete edifices to make the drains internal.

A city planner said the downspouts had to be external because of the internal operations of the building and the equipment inside.

"However, we did consider them to be screened by that required 10-foot wall," the planner said, adding that the building would not be visible from the sidewalk outside the property.

That didn't sit well with Johnson.

"In my opinion, this project is not being held to the same standards as other projects," he said. Screen walls aren't "what we use to solve these issues."

Though there were strong opinions, the board didn't insist on changes to the design of Project Red Hawk, citing phase one already underway and the project's compliance with the design standards in the city's development agreement.