The Sutton proposal would dwarf the Westfield project. When fully completed in 2033, the Kraft data center would consume 900 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a large city.
Given the political wind blowing against the construction of data centers, the Kraft group risks encountering strong local opposition. Residents have already provided feedback on the town’s Facebook group.
“The community responded pretty quickly to voice their concerns,” said state Rep. Joe McKenna, who represents the area. The main problems are that the project could raise electricity rates, use too much water and generate noise, he said. “These are concerns that I share, but I’m also not willing to say ‘no’ simply out of fear of the unknown or fear of uncertainty,” McKenna added.
Sutton Town Manager Austin J. Cyganiewicz confirmed the $16 billion proposal from Kraft Group and Unified Global Packaging Group in a letter sent to the town’s board of trustees Monday. The board of directors is scheduled to meet Tuesday evening.
The Krafts clashed with Foxborough city officials last summer over World Cup negotiations, battling more than $8 million in security costs. And in September, Robert Kraft drew widespread criticism for banning rap artist Macklemore from performing at Gillette Stadium because of his pro-Palestinian remarks.
Massachusetts is not an attractive destination for the large, energy-intensive data centers fueling the AI boom – Sutton’s would be the first. That’s because the state has the highest electricity rates in the country, not to mention high land prices and construction costs, said Matt Eastwood, an analyst at IDC.
But as the AI boom moves from early development to broader use, every region of the country will need large local data centers, Eastwood explained.
If approved, the first two buildings at the Sutton site, near Boston and Providence roads, would open in 2029, and two more facilities would come online each year through 2033, for a total of 10.
This timing makes sense given the forecast for AI use, Eastwood said. As companies use more artificial intelligence, “you’ll end up with a much more distributed and less centralized AI infrastructure,” he said, with a handful of data centers needed in New England.
In areas of the country with many data centers, these facilities appear to have driven up electricity rates. The Sutton campus, if fully built, would consume about 900 megawatts of electricity and cost $16 billion. would be a multiple of the estimated $2.8 billion value of all Sutton properties, Cyganiewicz wrote.
The power consumption would be equivalent to about 7 percent of the state’s peak power consumption on the hottest summer day last year, or about 12,575 megawatts.
For the Town of Sutton, which is struggling to balance its budget in the coming years, the property tax revenues from the data center could convince the skeptics.
The first two buildings on the data center campus would pay $10.4 million a year in property taxes starting in fiscal 2031. That would rise to about $27.8 million a year across all 10 buildings in 2035, Cyganiewicz estimated in his letter.
In a city with a $40 million annual budget, that would be a huge boon, potentially reducing residents’ property tax bills by thousands of dollars. In 2031, an average single-family homeowner could see their tax bill increase from $9,134 to $6,846, according to Cyganiewicz.
However, “the proposal is provisional,” he wrote. “No applications have been filed and significant details on electricity, water, equipment and impacts on the site are still to come.”
The Kraft Group did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
None from the city Board members immediately responded to requests for comment on the proposal, which was previously reported by MassLive.
Data centers have become increasingly controversial as critics point to their environmental impact, energy consumption and broader concerns about the effect of artificial intelligence on the job market. Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order in September to block new data centers in Massachusetts unless they get local approval.
Rep. Jim McGovern, whose congressional district includes Sutton, has been a leading opponent of data centers and co-sponsored a bill to impose a national moratorium. But McGovern said it would be up to residents to decide whether to move forward with the Kraft proposal.
“Utility costs have gone up for a lot of people because data centers use a lot of energy and use a lot of water…so for me, I don’t like them,” he said. “But ultimately it’s up to the people of Sutton to decide.”
Almost everywhere in the midterms, pro-data center candidates backed by big tech, including Senate candidates Jon Husted in Ohio and Ken Paxton in Texas, lost.
Many House candidates supporting AI and data centers also failed, including Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin and Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania. And in dozens of local referendums across the country, from Wells, Maine, to Defiance, Ohio, and Emporia, Kansas, voters have approved banning or restricting data centers.
Jim Puzzanghera of the Globe staff contributed reporting.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Travis Andersen can be contacted at travis.andersen@globe.com. Aaron Pressman can be contacted at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman.
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