OKEECHOBEE- The Florida School for Boys is set to be demolished this year to make way for a planned data center for Indian River State College.

At the Feb. 26 Okeechobee County Commission meeting, IRSC Associate Vice President of Government and Community Relations Andrew Treadwell presented commissioners with an update on the project and said that demolition is set to begin in March at the old Boys School property.

The first phase of demolition will see the cottages facing US Hwy 441 taken down, with the second phase demolishing remaining exterior structures on the north of the property.

IRSC was able to procure the property for the planned data center thanks to help from the Okeechobee County Economic Development Corporation starting back in 2021. 

Governor Ron DeSantis awarded IRSC $1.5 million in Rural Infrastructure Funds in Dec. 2024 to help site preparation for the data center.  Treadwell says that more funding will be needed. Additional funds could come from the Florida Legislature or private investment.

Data centers require a significant amount of electricity, and FPL has reported that the planned site for the data center in Okeechobee can currently support up to 9 megawatts. Treadwell told Okeechobee commissioners that IRSC plans to build a 9-to-10- megawatt data center, but that additional power will likely be needed over time.

Public sentiment has turned against data centers in the two years following the initial funding of $1.5 million dollars that IRSC received from Gov. DeSantis. And the political winds  have begun to follow that public pushback.

“If you double the demand, unless you double the supply, prices are going to go up,” said Gov. DeSantis about data center’s effect on electricity prices. “That’s just the way this stuff works. Unless you’re producing more, if you’re increasing demand exponentially, you are going to have individuals pay more. The cost is going to be higher.”

Gov. DeSantis announced proposal for a Citizen Bill of Rights for Artificial Intelligence back in Dec. 2024. Parts of that proposed bill include language that would prohibit utilities from charging residents more to support hyperscale data center development, including electric, gas, and water utilities.

IRSC says that the Okeechobee data center would not be a hyperscale data center. Hyperscale data centers can require up to 200 megawatts.

“I know the governor has been speaking against hyperscaler data centers, you know these 200 megawatts enormous projects,” said Treadwell during the Okeechobee Commission meeting. “This is not that, at least at the beginning.