TOOELE, Utah — The Utah National Guard armory here is a private, first-class of a building.
Formally called a readiness center, it’s where Utah’s citizen soldiers can train and prepare to deploy. Maintenance costs are piling up at the one-story, two-tone building. The guard would like to replace it.
Taxes – state and federal – have traditionally paid for National Guard building projects. Utah is looking at another source of funding: a controversial data center in Box Elder County, north of the Great Salt Lake.
It’s not a welcome plan at the Fraternal Order of Eagles lodge next door to the Tooele armory. On a recent afternoon, data center skepticism was being served alongside longneck bottles of beer.
From a stool at the lodge, Doug Rogers, who served 10 years in the U.S. Air Force and reserves as an aircraft mechanic, said he has “mixed emotions” about data centers and is “not really in favor of AI because you never know what to believe anymore.”
FOX 13 reviewed hundreds of pages of documents and hours of audio from public meetings to learn about the military connections with Stratos, the data center project proposed in Box Elder County by investor and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary. A plan would take taxes generated by Stratos to fund construction projects for the Utah National Guard.
But Stratos backers are also hoping the U.S. military or defense contractors join big AI companies in becoming customers at the data center.
“Utah is in the perfect location with the right educated workforce,” the Canadian O’Leary told FOX 13 in June, “with the right fiber and technology and the right defense, and people that have the DNA to support the military.”
ALL THAT IT CAN BE
Stratos is being developed on land leased and under the control of a state agency called the Military Installation Development Authority. Known as MIDA, it’s the agency that would collect taxes from Stratos to help fund those National Guard projects.
Clearfield Mayor Mark Shepherd serves on MIDA’s governing board. In an interview with FOX 13, Shepherd said the first time he heard the Stratos pitch, he thought it was a good project with “phenomenal benefit to the military.”
“There is income generated from Stratos that will help the National Guard,” Shepherd said.
Not that Shepherd, who says he does not have a security clearance, knows all the National Guard projects that MIDA will help construct.
“A lot of that'll be classified,” Shepherd said. “As those are made known to us, we can share those.”
Besides replacing the armory in Tooele, public documents reveal a few projects MIDA could develop for the National Guard:
- A new hangar for helicopters the Utah National Guard wants to station in Cedar City.
- The Utah National Guard’s main base, Camp Williams, would like a new physical fitness center and other training facilities.
- The guard would like to replace its nearly 50-year-old headquarters along Interstate 15 in Draper.
In all, MIDA lists 27 Utah National Guard properties where it could build or renovate. Without money from Stratos, Shepherd said, the projects would either have to compete with other states for money from the Pentagon or be paid for with taxes paid by everyday Utahns.
The Utah National Guard has “got to be paid for somewhere,” Shepherd said.
Representatives of the Utah National Guard declined to go on camera with FOX 13 but in emails emphasized the project list is fluid. Also, it could be years before Stratos generates any money for MIDA to share.
A MILITARY ASSET
The Utah Legislature created MIDA in 2007, though its origins can be traced to the 1990s.
The Department of Defense was closing bases. Utah’s Hill Air Force Base was considered for an honorable discharge, or – as politicians saw it – a crash landing the state’s economy wouldn’t walk away from.
While Hill escaped the cuts, Utah legislators decided to bolster the base’s economic defenses. They created MIDA to promote partnerships with the U.S. military, hoping to make Hill too important to close.
MIDA has developed Falcon Hill, a business park adjacent to the Air Force base. It’s also developed an addition to Deer Valley ski resort that caters to military personnel and veterans.
Stratos has created far more controversy than previous MIDA projects, inciting protests at public meetings. State Sen. Brady Brammer, R-Highland, plans to file a bill that could require MIDA developments to have more direct ties to the military.
“You've got a whole lot bigger development that's on private land,” Brammer said of Stratos, “not military land, and it's not next to a military base.
“And so, has that gone beyond what MIDA should do? And I think most people feel like maybe it has.”
Brammer clarified that he is not seeking to stop Stratos.
Back at the Eagles lodge next to the armory in Tooele, Rogers said if the choice was between building Stratos and funding the National Guard by raising his taxes, he’d pay the higher taxes.
“I think that would be the ticket,” Rogers said, “because I don't know what this data center is going to do.”