Bloom Parham Lawyers Battle to Defend Vested Rights to Develop Data Centers

DEKALB COUNTY, GA: The DeKalb County Zoning Board of Appeals voted on September 9 to uphold a staff decision blocking Bloom Parham client Shadowbox Studios’ request for a land development permit to develop a data center on its property.  The ZBA decision also left in place a countywide moratorium that Bloom Parham argues cannot lawfully apply to a client that secured the right to build years before the moratorium ever existed.

“The County told our client three times, in writing, that a data center was permitted on this property,” said Simon H. Bloom, Bloom Parham partner and lead counsel for Shadowbox. “Shadowbox relied on those assurances and invested tens of millions of dollars before the County ever adopted a moratorium. The County cannot make a promise, watch a company build around it, and then take the promise back.”

A subsidiary of Shadowbox purchased the roughly 166-acre property at 3600 International Park Drive in 2021. After Shadowbox secured a land development permit to develop a film studio on the property in 2022, softening demand for studio space led Shadowbox to explore a data center on the site instead, and in July 2024, the company’s board voted to abandon the film studio project in favor of the data center. Before making that pivot, Bloom said, Shadowbox took the responsible step of confirming with the County that a data center was allowed under the property’s zoning.

The County confirmed in writing, not once, but three times between June 2023 and February 2025, that a data center would be permitted by right and treated as a permitted “Communication Utility” or warehouse use under the property’s Light Industrial zoning. Relying on the County’s assurances, Shadowbox applied to Georgia Power for 651 megawatts of electrical capacity and has since spent more than $30 million pursuing the project. Bloom argued that this reliance is exactly what Georgia’s vested rights doctrine is designed to protect. “Once a county tells a property owner, in writing, three separate times, that a use is permitted, and that owner spends tens of millions of dollars relying on that assurance, the county cannot pull the rug out from under them,” Bloom said.

The County’s Board of Commissioners voted in July 2025 to enact a moratorium on new data center development and has extended it three times since, most recently through March 2027, even after voting down its own proposed data center zoning rules in June 2026, which served as the purported basis for extending the moratorium in the first instance. Bloom emphasized that neither the original moratorium nor its most recent extension was preceded by the public notice and hearing that Georgia’s Zoning Procedures Law requires. “Not once in those decisions did the county advertise, provide notice, or give the public or the affected property owners any opportunity to be heard,” Bloom said. “That is a procedural defect that renders the moratorium invalid.”

Despite the vested rights that Shadowbox possesses, the Zoning Board of Appeals upheld the County planning staff’s refusal to issue a land development permit for Shadowbox’s proposed data center. On behalf of Shadowbox, Bloom Parham has already asked the DeKalb County Superior Court to declare the data center moratorium invalid and recognize Shadowbox’s vested right to build. Bloom Parham now intends to appeal the ZBA’s ruling to the same court. “This isn’t over,” Bloom said. “We will keep fighting in Superior Court until Shadowbox’s vested rights are recognized.”

Facing a Vested Rights or Zoning Challenge? Talk to Bloom Parham

Vested rights disputes move fast, and the assurances a local government puts in writing today can become the strongest evidence in a courtroom years later. Bloom Parham’s land use and zoning team represents developers, property owners, and businesses across Georgia in disputes over rezonings, permit denials, moratoria, and vested rights claims like Shadowbox’s. To discuss a vested rights, zoning, or permitting matter, reach out to Simon H. Bloom, Andrea J. Pearson, or Ronnie Thompson, or learn more about our zoning and land use practice.