A city official told the Daily Herald on Monday that Volition informed the city it will no longer pursue building a data center in a warehouse at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon and instead is eyeing the purchase of a warehouse just north of  the Spanish Fork Airport. 

“They’re pursuing a specific building now, and if they can’t get it, they’re going to keep looking,” the official said. 

However, the official said no application has yet been filed with the city for the new site. The Daily Herald reached out to Volition on Monday but did not hear back by the afternoon print deadline. 

The council approved the code amendment in a 3-2 vote, requiring any data center built in the city to have on-site power generation, no more than 450 MW of power-generation capacity and operate in isolation from the Spanish Fork power system. There were also regulations regarding water use, air emissions, noise and wastewater. 

The code amendment took several meetings to be approved, nearly putting the deal in jeopardy. Volition CEO Jeff Chavez said at the council meeting that they had time constraints that were “strained to the maximum” but that they bought more time to allow the city to make a decision. 

“I think your concerns about another applicant coming soon are unfounded because I think every other data center in the world is going to choose a different city for a while than Spanish Fork after the amount of due diligence that you’ve done,” Chavez said.

KSL first reported Volition’s plans to move the data center Friday, reporting that the move came after concerns from people living near the initial location. Chavez told KSL they plan to develop in the Stockman Flats building. 

“Even though we can answer their questions technically, internally we still were trying to find a way or a path that might make Spanish Fork feel even better,” Chavez said to KSL.