Data Center Douglas County Colorado: A $19 Million Rebate for 16 Jobs, and the Water Rule the County Wrote and Then Dropped

Douglas County has one data center of any size on the way, and it tells you everything about how the county handles growth. The building is going up at Compark Boulevard and South Chambers Road in Parker: 249,000 square feet, 22.5 megawatts, 17 acres, built by Flexential and fed by CORE Electric from a substation next door. Parker approved it in early 2024 with no one speaking against it; most of the neighbors found out in 2026 when the steel went up. In August the county commissioners gave it a 35-year rebate on the county's share of its equipment taxes, about $19 million, for an estimated 16 permanent jobs, and said on the record that any business that asks will get the same deal. And between December and September, the county's own 2050 water plan dropped the one recommendation that would have made the next data center get a conditional use permit.

What Parker approved, and when

The proposal appeared on Parker's development map in 2021, according to Rocky Mountain PBS. In January 2024 the planning commission recommended it unanimously with no public opposition, and in February 2024 the Town Council approved the Compark Village Planned Development Sixth Amendment, rezoning part of the 390-acre Compark Village to Business Employment with a data center overlay of about 26 acres. Larry Jacobson of Westside Investment Partners, the developer that carried the application, told the town to expect 30 to 50 jobs near $70,000 and, since 7 percent of Parker electric bills go to the town as a franchise fee, $1.5 million to $1.7 million a year; Parker officials later put it at $500,000 to $700,000, per The Gazette. The Chamber's president supported it and conceded it has "no significant jobs impact" on its own.

Parker gave the project no tax incentive. It also gave the neighborhood no idea it was coming. The residents Rocky Mountain PBS interviewed in June learned of the data center from a Facebook post, or by watching months of construction without knowing what the building was. The hearings were noticed the way state law requires. The law's idea of notice and the public's idea of notice are two different things, and that gap is where every growth fight in this county starts.

What the county gave, and why

The commissioners took up Flexential's request on August 11, under two state statutes that let counties waive their share of business personal property tax to attract jobs or capital investment. Flexential asked for the county's share of the tax on the computers, generators and cooling plant inside the building, for 35 years, at 100 percent; the county says that is about $543,000 a year. Flexential still pays real property tax, still pays the school district, South Metro Fire and the libraries their shares of the equipment tax, and, by its own statement, pays CORE's full rate and its own electrical upgrades.

Residents who spoke, per Denver7, said the county should not subsidize the company, raised water, noise and property values, and asked why 16 jobs justify $19 million over 35 years. Flexential's Jack Faunce answered that the building would use under 600,000 gallons of water a year and run at about 65 decibels without its generators.

The commissioners voted yes, three to nothing, and none of them argued the case on jobs. They argued it on the tax. Kevin Van Winkle called business personal property tax "perpetual double taxation," saying "businesses are taxed over and over on the exact same piece of equipment." Abe Laydon, attending remotely, said "I have never been a fan of the business personal property tax" and that the county has "always had the practice, when an entity reaches out and requests a waiver," of granting it. George Teal said it plainly: "I will give a 100% credit to any business that asks for it."

Take him at his word. The county's rebate policy for data centers is that there is no policy; the only variable is how much equipment sits inside the walls. At Flexential's numbers that is about $34,000 a year in forgone county revenue per permanent job, for 35 years. There was no negotiation to report.

The water rule that disappeared

In December 2025 the county's consultant delivered a working draft of the 2050 Douglas County Water Plan. Chapter 10 listed 23 numbered recommendations. Number seven, "Classifying Water-Intensive Land Uses," said the county "should consider classifying greenhouses, data centers, nurseries, car washes, and/or hydroponic farms as water-intensive users," that such uses "must receive a conditional use permit subject to calculations of estimated water use and additional impact fees," and that this "would allow the County to examine the impact the use will have on water supplies and could enable the County to place certain mitigative restrictions on the operation of the facility."

The commissioners adopted the final plan on September 28, 2026. It is 218 pages. The words "data center" do not appear in it. Neither do "car wash," "greenhouse," "conditional use" or "impact fee." The numbered recommendations are gone; Chapter 10 now opens by cautioning against "treating Denver Basin groundwater as unavailable or categorically unsuitable for future use." We looked for a public explanation of why the water-intensive-use recommendation was cut between the draft and the vote and found none. The plan was finalized in the same quarter the commissioners approved the Flexential rebate.

To be fair to the facility: if Flexential's number holds, 600,000 gallons a year is about 1.8 acre-feet, the use of roughly eleven residents at the plan's own 153 gallons per person per day, and a closed loop is filled once and cooled by air. The volume is not the scandal. The draft recommendation was about process, calculating the use before approval and attaching conditions. That is what the county declined to require, in a plan whose own numbers say demand rises 46 percent by 2050 while supply rises 29, with 45,671 acre-feet a year of today's supply drawn from a nonrenewable aquifer.

The power, in CORE's own words

CORE Electric serves Parker and most of the county. Its FAQ says data centers were under 2.1 percent of its 2025 retail sales and that "one in-development project would grow over several years to about 7% to 8% of retail load at full buildout." It does not name the project. CORE's rules are the strongest protection a resident has: developers pay 100 percent of project-specific substations and transmission upgrades, rates are cost-based, and data centers "must commit to financing the new generation needed for their load." Xcel, which does not serve Parker, is before the Public Utilities Commission with a proposed rate class for loads above 50 megawatts; CORE answers only to its board and members.

What everyone else did

The legislature killed both data center bills in May. SB26-102 would have required facilities over 30 megawatts to report water and electricity use from 2028, match consumption with renewable power from 2031, sign 15-year contracts covering their infrastructure and forgo economic development rates; it died 9 to 0 in a Senate committee. HB26-1030 would have created a 20-year state sales tax exemption for $250 million projects meeting job, wage, labor and water conditions; it died 11 to 2 in the House. Colorado has neither a statewide incentive nor a statewide guardrail, so every decision sits with towns, counties and utilities.

Denver and Jefferson County adopted moratoria in May, Broomfield an 18-month one in July, Longmont a ban on anything over 100 megawatts in June; Boulder and Larimer counties paused. Colorado Springs advanced a 50-megawatt project and Weld County approved one near Windsor. Douglas County, in the same season, approved a rebate. On this ballot, Castle Rock mayoral candidate Amelia Thomas has pledged to oppose a data center in town (there is none in the town's Legistar record), House District 44 candidate Richard Bowness leads his platform with the Parker facility and would require proportional grid costs and disclosure, Eileen Laubacher would make data centers pay their own energy and infrastructure costs, and Greg Lopez would require them to protect water.

The questions for the next one

There will be a next one. Ask these, in public, before the vote:

• What is the metered water budget, and is it a condition of approval with annual reporting?
• What is the contracted load in megawatts, who finances the generation, and is the agreement public?
• How many permanent jobs, at what wages, and what does the rebate cost per job per year?
• Why 35 years, and what happens if the jobs or the investment fall short?
• Where is the notice beyond the legal minimum?
• For the county: why did the water-intensive-use recommendation leave the water plan, and who asked for it to go?

Our read

We do not think a 22.5-megawatt building with a closed cooling loop is going to drain Parker. We think the way it got here is the problem, and it is the same problem as every subdivision east of Parker Road: approval first, information later, and a board that treats a request as a formality. Parker rezoned 26 acres for a use nobody in the neighborhood knew about. The county gave away $19 million over a horizon longer than most buildings stand, under a stated rule that it gives that money to anyone who asks. And the one document meant to make the county think before approving water-intensive uses had that sentence removed before adoption, for a reason the county has not published. Castle Pines voters are being asked this November whether large annexations should go to a vote; nobody is being asked whether 35-year rebates should. Our page on that measure is the nearest thing on the ballot to the question this piece is about.

More: the Dawson Trails development piece, the HD-44 race, where the commissioners stand on the November measures, and every race on your ballot. We do not endorse candidates. Corrections to hello@discoverdougco.com.