DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — The DeKalb County Zoning Board of Appeals on Sept. 9 upheld a staff decision denying Shadowbox Studios’ bid to build a massive data center on land once eyed for the film studio’s expansion. The board voted to confirm county planning staff’s June 12 administrative decision to not accept Shadowbox’s request to change its land development permit for film studio land use to data center land use. The studio is seeking to build the more than 1 million-square-foot data center on 155 acres at 3600 International Park Drive in south DeKalb adjacent to its existing studio campus. The planning staff denied the application because the board of commissioners approved a temporary pause on new data center development last year. The board first approved the moratorium last July and since then has extended it three times, with the latest through March 30, 2027. Shadowbox has also sued DeKalb County in superior court, alleging the moratorium is invalid and that it should be allowed to build a data center. The case is pending. Zoning Board of Appeals Chair Mark Goldman said at the start of the discussion the ruling was just to be made on the planning staff’s June 12 decision “and not about how people feel about data centers.” Attorney Simon Bloom, representing Shadowbox, argued during the Sept. 9 meeting that the county’s three written confirmations that a data center could be built on the studio’s property, combined with the roughly $30 million it spent developing the site…
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