A giant data center planned for Bessemer has jumped one major hurdle on the way to what it calls one of the largest private investments in Alabama history, but it still faces a potential showdown with state highway planners who say the plan will have to change to accommodate the long-awaited Northern Beltline.

On Tuesday the Bessemer City Council voted to rezone nearly 700 acres of rural land just southwest of Birmingham to make way for the development of the $14 billion, 18-building hyperscale data center campus.

Brad Kraaber, of the TPA Group in Atlanta that’s the developer for the data center, told the Bessemer City Council that his company is working with the Alabama Department of Transportation to make planning changes necessary to allow for the Northern Beltline.

“We have been i

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