Pembroke Park Data Center Projects 2024-2026: $1M per MW Fee

Illustration of a blue hour industrial corridor with transmission towers and warehouse roofs, titled Broward Data Centers 2026: Pembroke Park Fee Stack, Colo Map, State Layers

Business & Policy

Owner map of Pembroke Park’s data center ordinance, M-1 special exception path and adopted fee schedule, Broward colocation sites with operator specs, and how Chapter 2026-65 layers on local rules.

By Brian D'Antoni September 23, 2026 10 min read

By Brian D’Antoni

Updated Oct. 15, 2026.

The Town of Pembroke Park has written local rules for data centers and AI training facilities and, as of Oct. 15, 2026, no named data center project appears as an application on the town’s posted commission agendas. For landlords, brokers and operators watching Broward’s industrial corridors, the useful product is a cost and process map: what the town’s ordinance requires, what fee figures were presented, which colocation buildings already publish their specs in the county, and how Florida’s Chapter 2026-65 (SB 484) adds statewide large-load rules on top of municipal land-use authority.

The aim is practical. The map below tracks the public record and operator-published facility facts so owners can underwrite parcels, letters of intent and power assumptions against documents rather than assumptions.

Why it matters for Broward. Data centers are long-term digital infrastructure that supports businesses, hospitals, schools and media companies, with construction jobs, permanent technical jobs, vendor contracts and demand for local professional services. Florida also offers a sales and use tax exemption for qualifying data center property.

What Pembroke Park Put on the Table

The town’s Feb. 20, 2026 special commission meeting agenda included an item directing staff to prepare a data center regulatory ordinance for development review and planning review. The ordinance then moved through the town’s review process to a first reading on June 10, 2026.

The town’s business impact estimate for Ordinance 2026-010 summarizes what the ordinance does. It amends Chapter 28 of the town code to regulate data centers and AI training facilities in the M-1 Industrial District, removes data centers as a permitted use, requires special exception approval, and sets infrastructure, water, sewer, electrical, cooling, climate resilience, employment, financial security, noise and operational standards, along with impact analyses, annual reporting and decommissioning plans. The town says the goal is to keep projects fiscally neutral or positive and compatible with surrounding uses.

The ordinance came back for second reading at the town’s Regular Commission Meeting on Sept. 9, 2026, listed on the published agenda as item 9.1, Ordinance No. 2026-010, under file number 26-Z-01, with the companion fee schedule as item 10.1, Resolution No. 2026-067. The town’s agenda packet for that meeting carries the full ordinance text and the Exhibit A fee schedule. Citizen Portal’s summary of the meeting reports that the commission adopted the ordinance and approved the resolution that night. The town had not yet posted approved minutes for Sept. 9 as of Oct. 15, so the Town Clerk’s office remains the place to confirm the final adopted text.

For owners, the practical change is clarity. Pembroke Park now has a written, single path for a data center or AI training facility in its M-1 Industrial District, with published standards and a published fee schedule, which lets landlords, brokers and operators price a site against documents instead of guesswork.

The Fee and Bond Categories Owners Underwrite

Exhibit A to Resolution 2026-067, as published in the town’s Sept. 9, 2026 agenda packet, puts dollar figures on every category the ordinance names. The ordinance states that minimum fee amounts may not be waived, reduced, negotiated downward, offset or incentivized, so the schedule works as a fixed input in a pro forma.

Fee or security (Exhibit A, Resolution 2026-067)	Amount as published Sept. 9, 2026
Application fee, special exception	$10,000 plus $100 per 1,000 sq. ft.
Application fee, site plan	$10,000 plus $100 per 1,000 sq. ft.
Cost recovery	$10,000 per review
Public works review fee	$10,000 per application
Electrical and community impact fee	$1,000,000 per megawatt of total approved electrical demand
Water capacity mitigation fee	$500,000 per acre
Emergency services fee	$250,000 plus any added amount for specialized equipment or training
High-demand utility surcharge	$250,000 per building permit application
Backup generation fee	$100,000 per megawatt of installed backup capacity, payable annually
Climate and resilience offset fee	$500,000 per building permit application
Performance bond or letter of credit	$10,000,000 minimum
Decommissioning bond	$5,000,000 minimum
Annual infrastructure monitoring fee	$250,000 per year
Annual employment job per megawatt fee	$100,000 per employee per year

Model each line against the megawatt program, acreage and building permit count for the site, and ask counsel how the adopted version reads if anything changed at the Sept. 9 hearing. The town’s business impact estimate says these fees apply only to data center or AI facility applicants.

Zoning Path: Special Exception in M-1

Under the ordinance, a data center in Pembroke Park’s M-1 Industrial District needs special exception approval rather than a by-right permit. The town’s impact estimate adds that applicants must fund all on-site and off-site infrastructure upgrades, prepare maximum theoretical load calculations and water and cooling plans, and cover the cost of independent engineers the town may hire. It also says existing M-1 businesses are not affected unless they seek to convert to or expand into data center operations.

The ordinance text in the town’s packet spells out the approval criteria. Among them: applicants must show their electric, water, sewer, stormwater, transportation and emergency service demands are covered, with utility confirmation; potable water may not be used for cooling unless the commission expressly approves it, and closed loop or reclaimed systems are required where feasible; sites may not abut residential or mixed-use districts, schools, parks, childcare facilities or places of worship; mechanical noise is capped at 65 dBA by day and 55 dBA at night at the property line; and projects need three permanent full-time jobs per megawatt or payment of the employment fee. Related buildings on common parcels are counted as one facility, expansions return to the commission, and a decommissioning plan is due at site plan approval, with annual engineer reports due each Jan. 1.

For a letter of intent, the practical fields are whether the folio sits inside Pembroke Park town limits, whether it is zoned M-1 or another district, whether the adopted use definitions match the proposed program, and what hearing calendar and noticing rules apply to a special exception. Building those answers into the letter early keeps the timeline realistic for both sides.

Pembroke Park already hosts network infrastructure. Cogent Communications lists a colocation facility at 3924 Pembroke Road, marketed as its Hollywood, Florida data center. Cogent’s brochure lists 2,480 square feet of space, 42U cabinets, Cogent and Inrange connectivity with ports up to 100GE, one 90 kVA UPS unit and one 275 kW Cummins-Onan generator with a 2,500-gallon diesel tank. It is a network and colocation node, separate from any future large campus.

Broward’s Existing Colo Map (Operator-Published)

Broward’s carrier-neutral footprint is smaller than Miami-Dade’s interconnection cluster. Operator pages point to three multi-tenant colocation buildings in the county, plus the Cogent room in Pembroke Park.

Flexential Fort Lauderdale, 5301 NW 33rd Avenue, Fort Lauderdale. Flexential describes a Category 5 hurricane-resistant facility with a 64,164-square-foot data center footprint, 3.15 MW of critical power, N+1 power and fully redundant cooling, and a 100 percent SLA on power, cooling, network and bandwidth. Confirm the SLA attached to any specific order.

365 Data Centers Fort Lauderdale, 3250 W. Commercial Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. The operator lists an 11,400-square-foot data center with geographically diverse fiber entry, N+1 UPS, a dedicated 1.5 MW generator, carriers including AT&T, Comcast, Crown Castle, Lumen and Windstream, and access to the FL-IX peering exchange.

Volico Fort Lauderdale, 500 Green Road, Pompano Beach. Volico’s facility page lists 20,000 square feet of current floor space with 140,000 square feet of future capacity, Category 5 hurricane-resistant design, and 2 MW of utility and generator power with 48 MW of expansion capacity. Some directories list this building under more than one brand, so underwrite it as one physical plant.

Directories that count nine or more Broward facilities often include retired brand names or count one building twice. For acquisition or disaster recovery diligence, operator pages and a site walk are more reliable than spreadsheet counts.

How Chapter 2026-65 Layers on Local Rules

Florida’s CS/CS/SB 484 was approved by the Governor on May 8, 2026, as Chapter 2026-65, effective July 1, 2026 except as otherwise provided. The enrolled act says local governments keep their authority over comprehensive planning and land development regulations relating to large load customers, and that a large load customer is not to be treated as an electric substation. For Broward owners, a statewide tariff law does not replace Pembroke Park’s, or any city’s, zoning calendar.

On the utility side, the act creates section 366.043, Florida Statutes, which defines a large load customer as one with an anticipated monthly peak load of 50 megawatts or more at a single location, including customers in a colocation arrangement at a site that meets that peak. It required each public utility to file a compliant large-load tariff with the Florida Public Service Commission by Oct. 1, 2026, so that large-load customers carry their own cost of service.

The act also addresses consumptive use permits for large-scale data centers and directs OPPAGA to contract for a study of their construction and operation. Operators and landlords should keep three separate files: city or county zoning; the utility large-load tariff and interconnection; and the water permit path with the water management district or the Department of Environmental Protection.

Adjacent County Process (Not Broward Code)

Palm Beach County commissioners adopted the county’s Large-Scale Data Center Moratorium ordinance 6 to 0 at the Sept. 24, 2026 zoning hearing, according to CBS12 and WPBF. It pauses new zoning and Comprehensive Plan filings for data centers of 50 megawatts or more of anticipated monthly peak load in unincorporated Palm Beach County for up to one year while the county writes permanent standards. Projects below 50 MW can still apply with a Florida-licensed engineer’s load certification, and approvals already granted stand. It is not Broward law. It matters to owners who hold land on both sides of the county line or who pair Broward colocation with Palm Beach sites for disaster recovery. The Palm Beach County owner guide is linked under Related Reading, and its rules should not be applied to a Pembroke Park or Fort Lauderdale folio.

Owner Checklist: Parcels, MW and Public Record

Confirm jurisdiction: Town of Pembroke Park, another Broward municipality or unincorporated Broward.
Pull the zoning district and any pending comprehensive plan or rezoning file numbers from the town or county portal.
If underwriting in Pembroke Park, pull the Sept. 9, 2026 agenda packet from the town’s CivicClerk portal and confirm the final adopted Ordinance 2026-010 and Resolution 2026-067 with the Town Clerk’s office.
Model fee lines from Exhibit A, starting with the $1,000,000 per megawatt electrical and community impact fee and the $10,000,000 performance bond minimum.
Count permanent full-time jobs per megawatt and test the site against the residential, school, park and worship adjacency rule.
Write anticipated monthly peak load (MW) from utility or engineer letters, and flag whether the program could meet the state’s 50 MW large load customer definition under section 366.043.
For colocation or edge deals, start with the operator-published addresses above: Flexential, 365 Data Centers, Volico and Cogent Pembroke Park.
Ask your utility for its large-load tariff, which Chapter 2026-65 required utilities to file with the Public Service Commission by Oct. 1, 2026, and confirm its approval status before you sign.
If the folio sits in Palm Beach County, use the Palm Beach County owner guide instead.

Scope of This Owner Map

The map covers Broward process and facilities: Pembroke Park’s data center ordinance and its adopted fee schedule, existing colocation plants with operator specs, and the state large-load chapter that preserves local land-use authority. It is not a vote recommendation, not a directory of every location labeled a data center, and not an argument for or against data center development.

Sources

Key Facts for Owners and Search

Which data center projects has Pembroke Park approved for 2024 to 2026?

As of Oct. 15, 2026, no named data center project appears as an application on the town’s posted commission agendas. What the town has produced is a rulebook: Ordinance 2026-010, which took its second reading Sept. 9, 2026, and the companion fee schedule in Resolution 2026-067. Cogent’s existing colocation room on Pembroke Road predates both.

What does Pembroke Park’s data center ordinance require?

Ordinance 2026-010 removes data centers as a permitted use in the M-1 Industrial District and requires commission approval through a special exception path. Criteria include utility confirmation of demand, limits on potable water cooling, setbacks from residential and civic uses, noise caps of 65 dBA by day and 55 dBA at night, and three jobs per megawatt.

How much are Pembroke Park’s data center fees?

Exhibit A to Resolution 2026-067, as published in the town’s Sept. 9, 2026 agenda packet, lists a $1,000,000 per megawatt electrical and community impact fee, $500,000 per acre for water capacity, a $10,000,000 minimum performance bond, a $5,000,000 decommissioning bond and $250,000 a year for infrastructure monitoring, among other lines.

Has Pembroke Park adopted the data center ordinance?

The town’s Sept. 9, 2026 agenda listed Ordinance 2026-010 for second reading and Resolution 2026-067 for approval, and Citizen Portal reports the commission adopted both that night. Approved minutes for Sept. 9 were not yet posted as of Oct. 15, so owners should confirm the final adopted text with the Town Clerk’s office.

How does Florida’s SB 484 affect local data center rules?

Chapter 2026-65 keeps local authority over comprehensive planning and land development rules for large load customers. It defines a large load customer as 50 megawatts or more of anticipated monthly peak load at one location, and it required public utilities to file compliant large-load tariffs with the Public Service Commission by Oct. 1, 2026.

Brian D’Antoni writes The Sundaze Gazette from Palm Beach County. He reports on business, film and technology for South Florida owners.

Filed Under Business & Policy