TULSA, Okla. — The public learned for the first time April 21 that the Fair Oaks Industrial Innovation Park AI data center will be run by the corporate giant Meta, which controls Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other social networks.
Meta will fund all its construction at the site plus $25 million in public infrastructure that Timber Wolf announced it just completed.
City of Tulsa will also get $62.5 million for other infrastructure instead of taxes from Meta as part of a 25-year tax incentive district agreement (TID). Meta will also only pay 15% of its property tax bill during that time.
However, some officials are not celebrating like elected and economic leaders did during the announcement.
- Previous coverage>>> META TO TULSA: Data center planned for east Tulsa supports Meta
Count City Councilor Laura Bellis, who led the vote on a city data center moratorium through the end of the year, as not a fan.
Bellis said she and her council colleagues repeatedly got the runaround from Meta officials throughout the process, and that the corporation has not agreed to any public meetings beyond local organizations.
A Meta spokesperson told 2 News Oklahoma April 22 that with the AI data center, Meta will “strive to be good neighbors in the communities where we operate, and we make every effort to work with our local partners to address community needs.”
As we shared during our event yesterday, we are proud to call east Tulsa home. We strive to be good neighbors in the communities where we operate, and we make every effort to work with our local partners to address community needs. Yesterday we shared a number of initial investments we're making in the community, including workforce development and direct support for nonprofits and education. We have also partnered with our general contractor to set up a website at tulsaokdatacenter.com to share real-time construction updates about the project, as well as information on hiring. Once operational, the Tulsa Data Center will be optimized for our AI workloads as part of the highly-advanced infrastructure that helps bring our technologies to life, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, Meta AI and WhatsApp, making it possible to connect billions of people worldwide.
PartnerTulsa's Michelle Barnett reiterated to 2 News that the economic agreement remains favorable to Tulsans, such as with future grants.
"We’re excited to be able to see opportunities like that or additional funding for our nonprofits and other community and neighborhood groups to benefit from the investment that the company is going to make,” Barnett said.
A notable absence from the press conference announcing Meta as the owner of the site was Mayor Monroe Nichols.
While the exact reason for his absence was not confirmed, a city spokesperson said he cannot comment on the data center until further notice, as his focus is on his annual budget presentation which was delivered to Tulsa City Council the evening of April 22.
Project Anthem, which brought Meta to operate the data center, began negotiations well before Mayor Nichols took office.
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