23-04-2025
Dale Earnhardt's widow gets approval of plan for her 400 wooded Mooresville acres
The widow of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt received approval by Mooresville planners Tuesday night for a major data center campus on her 400 wooded acres.
The Mooresville Planning Board voted 4-3 to recommend a rezoning of Teresa Earnhardt's land for a planned Mooresville Technology Park, which would 'play a key role in supporting the Southeast's digital needs,' according to its website.
The Mooresville Board of Commissioners, which has final say, will vote on the rezoning at a meeting to be announced.
The park would bring 277 'recession-resistant' jobs, including 195 paying $125,000 a year, Kristin Dean of Tract, a data center developer based in Denver, Colorado, told the board. Tract would develop the park, basically buildings with computer servers.
Mooresville Technology Park will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue for Mooresville, Iredell County and local public schools over 20 years, according to Mooresville Technology
Dean reiterated the expected tax revenue before the Planning Board. 'It's in the multiple billions of dollars,' she said.
The first building would be completed in 2029, Dean said.
The site is behind Coddle Creek ARP Church, between Patterson Farm and Rustic roads in one of the last stretches of active farmland in Mooresville.
Earnhardt, who was from Kannapolis, died in a last-lap crash at the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 18, 2001.
Teresa Earnhardt did not attend Tuesday night's meeting, instead sending Tract and others affiliated with her project to speak on her behalf.
Seven residents spoke against the plans.
Neighbor Ellen Abercrombie said her home borders the property. She's concerned about noise and light pollution and what happens if the parks some day closes.
The park 'will end our natural wildlife pattern, part of the beauty of living in the country,' Abercrombie told the board.
'I want to continue to see the cloud, not a building housing the cloud,' resident Kerry Pennell said, referring to seeing clouds in the sky.
She said traffic is already so bad that 'we can't make it down nearby N.C. 3 (Coddle Creek Highway) for lunch if we wanted to.'
Neighbor Alan Goodman cited the 24/7 noise generated by data center cooling systems. A project representative told him the park would comply with Mooresville noise limits, but Goodman said the ordinance is vague regarding the limits.
'It is very flexible,' Erika Martin. director of Mooresville planning and community development, said about the noise ordinance. Planners would work to make the limits more specific regarding the Earnhardt property before the Town Board considered the rezoning request, she told the Planning Board.
A 100-foot buffer would separate the project from surrounding properties, and a third of the property would remain undeveloped, Dean said.
The park would generate about 1,000 vehicle trips a day, a third of the number allowed under the current zoning of the site, which allows for 370 single-family homes, Dean said.
Three-quarters of an acre would be reserved for a police/EMS substation, she said.
Planning Board member Shaun Hooper made a motion to recommend the rezoning be denied. He said the area is zoned for 'low density' and the project was incompatible with the One Mooresville plan that guides growth in the town.
His motion failed, with four members voting against and Hooper and two others in favor.
Board member Michael Cole made a motion in favor of the rezoning, citing the economic benefits, in part. The measure passed 4-3.
Tuesday night was the second go-around for the project.
In October, a standing-room-only crowd of nearly 200 neighbors protested the plans before the board. The board agreed, voting 8-0 against Teresa Earnhardt's proposal.
