What to Know About the New Data Center in Forest Hill
Discover how the new Forest Hill data center could transform local infrastructure and create opportunities for the community!
Black Mountain Power LLC has laid its cards on the table. The company recently presented residents with a site plan for a proposed data center at the intersection of Forest Hill Drive and Lon Stephenson Road—and depending on how the next few months unfold, this project could quietly become one of the most consequential infrastructure decisions this community makes in a generation.
That's not hyperbole. It's just what happens when a large-scale data center lands in a smaller market. The ripple effects—on jobs, on power demand, on roads, water, and tax rolls—tend to be larger than anyone initially expects, in both directions.
Here's what you actually need to know.
The Proposal: What Black Mountain Power Is Building
Black Mountain Power LLC is the developer behind the Forest Hill data center proposal, and the site they've chosen—at Forest Hill Drive and Lon Stephenson Road—is worth paying attention to for its logistics alone. Location decisions for data centers aren't arbitrary. Developers evaluate land for power grid proximity, fiber connectivity, cooling water access, and regional latency requirements. When a company plants a flag somewhere, it's because the underlying infrastructure math works.
The company has already taken the step of presenting a formal site plan to residents, which signals this project is past the napkin-sketch phase. Site plan presentations typically come after significant engineering work and preliminary regulatory engagement—meaning Black Mountain Power has already invested real capital into this vision.
What we don't yet know publicly is the facility's proposed scale—and that number will determine everything from how many jobs get created to how many megawatts get pulled from the local grid.
For context, modern hyperscale data centers can consume anywhere from 20 MW for a smaller facility to well over 100 MW for a large campus. Even a mid-range build at 40–50 MW represents a load that fundamentally changes the calculus for local utility planning.
What's in It for Forest Hill
The economic case for welcoming a data center is real, and it's worth being specific about how the benefits actually flow—because they don't always land where people expect.
Direct job creation at data centers is often more modest than headline announcements suggest. A facility that costs $200 million to build might permanently employ fewer than 50 full-time workers once operational. The skilled operations roles—network engineers, facilities technicians, security personnel—tend to pay well above local median wages, but the headcount is lean by design. Automation is baked into the business model.
Where Forest Hill would likely feel the bigger economic impact is in the construction phase and the tax base. Large data center builds generate thousands of construction jobs over 18–36 months. More durably, data centers are massive capital assets—assessed at tens or hundreds of millions of dollars—which translates directly into property tax revenue that funds schools, roads, and emergency services for decades.
Some rural and suburban communities have used data center tax revenue to fund infrastructure improvements they otherwise couldn't have afforded—from road upgrades near the facility to broadband expansion across the broader area.
There's also a multiplier effect that's easy to underestimate: data centers attract supporting businesses. Electrical contractors, cooling system specialists, fiber providers, and facilities management firms often establish or expand local operations when a major data center comes online nearby.
The Concerns Worth Taking Seriously
Community skepticism about projects like this isn't irrational—it's informed. The concerns residents raise at meetings like the one Black Mountain Power hosted deserve straight answers, not PR deflection.
Power and Grid Pressure
The most substantive concern is energy consumption. A significant data center will draw heavily on the local grid, and if that infrastructure isn't already built out to handle the load, ratepayers can end up subsidizing the upgrades through higher utility costs. It's a legitimate question that deserves a direct answer from both Black Mountain Power and the local utility: Who pays for grid upgrades, and on what timeline?
Water and Cooling
Traditional cooling systems for data centers consume significant amounts of water—sometimes millions of gallons per year for large facilities. Communities with constrained water resources have learned this the hard way. The specific cooling technology Black Mountain Power plans to use at the Forest Hill site matters enormously, and residents should ask for those details explicitly.
Traffic and Road Impact
Construction traffic alone can degrade road quality on routes that weren't designed for heavy equipment. The Forest Hill Drive and Lon Stephenson Road corridors will need assessment for long-term load capacity, not just during the build phase.
None of these concerns are dealbreakers by default. But they require binding commitments in development agreements—not assurances in a community presentation.
Where Data Centers Are Heading on Energy
One thing works in Forest Hill's favor here: the data center industry is under enormous pressure to clean up its energy footprint, and the most forward-looking developers are responding with real investments rather than just marketing language.
The push toward renewable-powered data centers has accelerated dramatically. Major operators are signing long-term power purchase agreements for solar and wind, co-locating battery storage systems on-site to smooth demand peaks, and in some cases, building their own generation assets adjacent to facilities. Liquid cooling technology—which is dramatically more efficient than traditional air cooling—is moving from pilot projects to standard practice.
If Black Mountain Power has incorporated any of these design elements into the Forest Hill proposal, that changes the environmental calculus considerably and should be surfaced clearly for the community.
The broader trend is that data centers, which once seemed like energy-hungry black boxes with little accountability, are increasingly being held to measurable efficiency and sustainability standards. Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratios, water usage metrics, and renewable energy percentages are now standard reporting categories for serious operators. Forest Hill residents should know where this project stands on all three.
What Comes Next — and How to Stay in the Loop
A site plan presentation to residents is an early step, not a final approval. The path from here to a construction permit typically runs through local zoning review, environmental assessment, utility coordination, and multiple rounds of public comment. That process is where community input actually shapes outcomes—not after the ribbon cutting.
For residents who want to engage meaningfully:
- Attend public hearings—zoning and planning board meetings are where binding conditions get set, not community informational sessions.
- Request specific answers on grid upgrade cost allocation, water consumption projections, cooling technology specifications, and construction traffic management plans.
- Ask about community benefit agreements—some municipalities have negotiated direct commitments from data center developers, including local hiring preferences, road improvement contributions, and utility bill protections for existing ratepayers.
- Watch the tax incentive structure—many data center projects receive significant property tax abatements. Understanding exactly what exemptions Black Mountain Power has requested or received matters for evaluating the net fiscal impact.
The Forest Hill data center proposal is neither automatically good nor automatically bad for the community. It's a major infrastructure decision that deserves rigorous public scrutiny and clear, enforceable commitments from the developer. Black Mountain Power has started the conversation. What happens next depends on how well the community engages with the details—and how willing the developer is to provide them.