The proposed site of the "Project Blue" data center, near the Pima County Fairgrounds.
Originally published on AZ Luminaria on July 29, 2025.
Even before its first public meeting on a controversial and long-secretive 290-acre data center project, the city of Tucson had already filed a petition with the Pima County Recorder’s Office to begin the process of annexing the land where the center — now revealed to be Amazon Web Services — would be built.
The document, “Intent to Annex Brekke and Harrison Annexation District,” was filed with the Pima County Recorder’s Office by Mike Czechowski, Tucson’s Annexation Project Manager, on July 23, at 3:14 p.m. That was just hours before the first public meeting about Project Blue, the code name for the proposed giant data center both the city of Tucson and Pima County have been discussing since at least 2023, according to county documents and emails.
Czechowski signed the intent-to-annex document, which includes a detailed geographic description and map of the property, even earlier, on July 17.
“This is an annexation. It is currently in unincorporated Pima County, owned by Pima County. We have given notice to them that we will be initiating that annexation,” Czechowski said during the July 23 public hearing.
In a message to city council members and staffers on Monday evening, City Attorney Mike Rankin said the filing of the petition was a routine step to enable the Aug. 19 public hearing, and did not commit city officials to any decisions or next steps.
"The filing of these documents does not commit the Mayor and Council to approve the subject annexation; and it does not trigger exposure to any claims if the Mayor and Council ultimately choose NOT to proceed with this proposed annexation," the email said.
The project has been shrouded in secrecy since its inception. Neither Tucson nor Pima County officials publicly announced the possibility of a data center coming to the region until February. Pima County’s Board of Supervisors voted to sell the land on which the data center could be built without knowing key details, including what company would be operating the facility. Arizona Luminaria first reported that the county had named Amazon Web Services as the company behind Project Blue on July 21.
The project cleared its first big hurdle on June 17 when the Pima County Board of Supervisors approved the sale and rezoning of county-owned land. The next step is for the city of Tucson to annex that land into city boundaries.
Ward 6 council member Karin Uhlich told Arizona Luminaria that while the letter was filed in line with the regular annexation process to allow a discussion on it at the Aug. 19 meeting, she didn’t anticipate an imminent vote. “Nothing I am hearing from community or colleagues indicates this will be voted on that soon, however,” she said. “This clearly is not an annexation or project on a fast track as far as I'm concerned.”
Uhlich said she currently remains a no vote on the project given remaining unresolved questions.
Arizona Luminaria also reached out to Czechowski, Tucson’s Annexation Project Manager, and Mayor Regina Romero for comment.
The Pima County Recorder’s Office told Arizona Luminaria that its office simply records and makes available these kinds of public documents.
The petition to annex requires a public hearing to move to the next step. Currently, that hearing is set to take place during a city council meeting on Aug. 19. If city officials give the green light, they would need to gather petitions from local property owners and then bring the annexation plan back to city officials for a final vote.
“At that meeting is the request of mayor and council to initiate a one-year process to collect the necessary signatures and go through the steps to bring it back to mayor and council at a subsequent meeting for consideration for final adoption,” Czechowski said at the July 23 meeting.
The document is required by state law governing how land is incorporated into city limits.
Under that process, a city must file a blank petition to the county recorder’s office. That petition must include a map of the territory they aim to annex, and include information about the entity that will be responsible for maintaining right of ways and roadways.
Tucson must annex the property for the project to move forward and for both water and electricity to be supplied for the data centers.
After filing the petition, the city is required to hold a public hearing within the last 10 days of a 30-day window following the filing. In this case, that requirement will be met by the Aug. 19 meeting.
To move ahead, Tucson will eventually have to get the signature of more than 50% of property owners in the area.
The 290-acre data center campus — nearly the size of downtown Tucson — proposed for the area north of Pima County Fairgrounds and west of Houghton Road is one of the largest development projects ever considered by the city or county.
Proponents hail job creation and an economic boost the project would bring. Local critics have warned that a massive data center would be a drain on Tucson’s water and energy – and be a blight in the desert environment. They’ve also raised concerns over public officials’ lack of transparency about the project.
This article first appeared on AZ Luminaria and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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