Developers seek annexation of Cox Ranch for business‑park/data‑center campus; neighbors raise water, heritage and traffic concerns

Developers pursuing annexation of the Cox Ranch parcel west of Round Top Road and adjacent to Happy Jack Road told Cheyenne’s Public Service Committee on April 20 that their planned project would be a business‑park and data‑center campus served by city utilities and funded infrastructure upgrades.

Tom Galissmeer of Via West and Jack O’Neal of Skybox Data Centers presented the project to the committee, saying they aim to build a multi‑phase data‑center campus with long‑term operations and minimal permanent local traffic. O’Neal said the facilities would use closed‑loop cooling and that the developer and utilities would shoulder upgrade costs for water, sewer and electric service, asserting the project would provide hundreds of long‑term jobs and substantial tax‑base gains.

The presentation met immediate pushback from residents, tribal‑heritage advocates and local groups. Reeba Eper, a lawyer who said she has long family ties to the ranch, told the committee the parcel contributes to groundwater recharge that historically fed Crow Creek and the city’s wellfields and pointed the committee to USGS and local hydrology reports indicating the area is hydrologically significant. “This will have a significant negative impact on the city of Cheyenne’s water supply,” she said.

Other speakers raised related worries: Patricia McCoy described the property as a gateway landscape with ecological and cultural significance; several residents described an on‑site family mausoleum and other burial features and asked how the project would protect them; neighbors argued that local roads such as Happy Jack are already narrow and underfunded and will bear heavy construction traffic without a pavement‑impact agreement in place.

Cheyenne Leads, an economic‑development nonprofit, urged the committee to ensure developers pay for needed upgrades and explained that previous data‑center development in local business parks had been structured so utilities and roads were paid by the companies, not ratepayers. Betsy Hail, Cheyenne Leads CEO, noted that existing BOPU reports show data centers currently represent a small share of water deliveries (about 1–2% in recent years) but underscored the importance of requiring developers to fund system upgrades.

Legal and procedural questions surfaced during the hearing. Staff said the annexation was an owner‑petition and that contiguity to city limits is roughly 5.26% due to the parcel’s size; planning staff recommended approval of an annexation on technical grounds (extension of services, adjacency to the North Range Business Park) but the committee did not reach consensus. The meeting record also shows strong neighborhood demand for additional environmental, hydrological and cultural‑resource analysis before any governing‑body action.

Outcome: After extensive public comment and discussion, the committee declined to forward a recommendation to the governing body on the annexation. Committee members did approve a narrow technical substitute to correct owner names in the ordinance language for publication purposes, but the substantive annexation received no recommendation and will return to the governing body without a committee endorsement.

What happens next: Because this annexation and subsequent zoning/future‑land‑use changes would enable large industrial uses including data‑center campuses, committee members and residents urged further technical study (hydrology, traffic and cultural resources), clear utility‑cost and road‑impact agreements, and neighborhood engagement before the council acts.