State environmental records show plans for a roughly 2-million-square-foot industrial development near Brookwood Middle School in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, with permit documents tying the project to Applied Digital, a Dallas-based data center company. The project would disturb nearly 137 acres during construction and sits on a 1,292-acre property the company controls along Brookwood Parkway.
The Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) granted construction stormwater permit coverage to APLD BHM-01 LLC, an Applied Digital affiliate, for the "Brookwood, AL Industrial" project. The permit took effect July 20 and authorizes stormwater discharges related to construction through March 31, 2031.
The application describes a proposed industrial building of roughly 2 million square feet. The work includes mass grading, utility installation, paving, erosion controls and multiple sediment basins. Construction is expected to begin in late July 2026 and conclude by the end of 2028.
Documents tie project to Applied Digital
The legal permittee is APLD BHM-01 LLC, but the project is identified with Applied Digital throughout the engineering and permit documents. The Construction Best Management Practices Plan lists Jason Zhang as the responsible official using an applieddigital.com email address. Brian Hasemann of Applied Digital Corporation is named as project manager, emergency contact and site operator. Civil engineering firm Kimley-Horn prepared the environmental plans.
Engineering drawings included in the permit package list Applied Digital as the project owner and developer, with the company's Dallas headquarters as the owner address. County GIS records show Applied Digital owns hundreds of acres along Brookwood Parkway, suggesting the permitted construction may be one phase of a larger development strategy.
Likely link to Delta Forge 2
The Brookwood filings align with a June 8 announcement from Applied Digital. The company said it signed a long-term lease for Delta Forge 2, described only as a purpose-built AI Factory campus in "a new southern state." The project would support 210 megawatts of critical IT load under a 15-year lease with a U.S.-based investment-grade hyperscaler, with operations beginning in the first quarter of 2028.
ADEM documents do not identify the Brookwood project as Delta Forge 2, and Applied Digital has not publicly named the location. But the timing, company affiliation, project scale and construction timeline closely match the June announcement.
Environmental review and local response
The permit package spans more than 100 pages and details stormwater management measures designed to protect nearby waterways. Plans include sediment basins, stabilized construction entrances, erosion controls, 25-foot riparian buffer zones and more than 20 stormwater outfalls draining toward Hurricane Creek and several unnamed tributaries.
ADEM required multiple revisions before approving the application. Agency correspondence shows engineers from Kimley-Horn worked with ADEM staff over several weeks to correct outfall locations, topographic maps, receiving-water designations and construction plans.
Brookwood Mayor Joe Barger said the city is not responsible for reviewing the state permit application.
"It's important to clarify the City's role in this process," Barger said. "The permit application that has received attention was submitted to the State of Alabama and is administered through the state's permitting process. It is not an application that comes before the City of Brookwood for review or approval."
Nick Phillips, Applied Digital's executive vice president of external affairs, said: "Applied Digital continually evaluates potential sites in many locations. No decision has yet been made whether or not to proceed with a project at that particular location."
Why this matters for real estate and construction professionals
The scale alone - 2 million square feet, 137 disturbed acres, a 1,292-acre parent parcel - means multi-year work streams for civil contractors, surveyors and erosion-control specialists. The permit documents also show what ADEM expects on large sites near sensitive waterways: riparian buffers, sediment basins and multiple rounds of agency review before approval.
For teams tracking industrial pipelines in the Southeast, the Applied Digital filings are a concrete signal of where data center capacity is heading. The company's AI Factory strategy focuses on purpose-built, high-density campuses for AI training and inference workloads, which demand sophisticated cooling and AI for Operations systems.
Anyone bidding on industrial work in the region should watch whether Applied Digital files additional permits for the rest of its Brookwood land. If it does, the current project may be only the first phase of a much larger buildout - the kind of pipeline that AI for Real Estate & Construction professionals track closely.
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