SARASOTA, Fla. (October 19, 2026). Gubernatorial candidate Dean Abrams today made public that Palm Beach County zoning staff approved a plan that more than triples the data center space at the Project Tango site in Loxahatchee, three months after county commissioners rejected the project's expansion.
The facts:
- July 15: After a 12-hour hearing, the Palm Beach County Commission voted 5-1 to deny the Project Tango expansion near the Arden community.
- August: Commissioners approved a one-year moratorium on new data center applications.
- October 7: County zoning staff administratively approved a request from landowner PBA Holdings, filed before the moratorium, to reassign unused rights in the site's 2016 master plan. Data center space rises from about 200,000 square feet to about 698,000 square feet across three buildings.
- The approval required no commission vote and no new public hearing. A second landowner, WPB Logistics, has a pending request that could add roughly 1.2 million more square feet.
"The commissioners said no in public. Then the same project came through the side door, and the families in Arden found out after the fact," said Abrams. "This is exactly why Florida needs a statewide rule: no hyperscale data centers approved without a public vote, and no grandfathering around a moratorium."
Abrams has called for an end to new AI data centers in Florida since June.
Abrams's original post: Dean Abrams on X, October 19
Media contact: Dean Abrams · dean@deanabrams.com · 941-233-4951
About Dean Abrams: Dean Abrams is a No Party Affiliation candidate for Governor of Florida. He spent 30 years in enterprise technology and management consulting, including Microsoft, HP, KPMG, and Avanade. His campaign is self-funded and accepts no PAC or corporate money.