SUMTER FIELD DESK
Wetland, flood & footprint
How much of this land can be built on?
Short answer
Most of the site is wetland. A February 2023 field delineation found 61.47 of the tract's 103.91 acres are wetland, 59.16%, along with 1,862 feet of perennial stream. The consultant's conclusion was that these are jurisdictional wetlands, so filling or building on them requires a federal permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The signed development agreement commits Liberty to about 400,000 square feet of buildings in four phases, plus a substation, with construction starting no later than January 2027. No Corps permit application for this tract has been located.
The numbers
| Acres | Share of tract | |
|---|---|---|
| Delineated wetland | 61.47 | 59.16% |
| Perennial stream (1,862 linear feet) | 0.42 | 0.40% |
| Ephemeral stream (69 linear feet) | 0.01 | 0.009% |
| Everything else | ~42 | ~40% |
Source: Terracon wetlands and waters determination, February 10, 2023 and its delineation map. Field work was done February 7 and 8, 2023 for the River Valley Regional Commission, under a brownfield assessment grant. Public money, on this parcel, three years before the sale.
The boundary survey shows the same ground a second way: a FEMA Zone AE special flood hazard area runs through the middle of the tract, following Willets Branch, which is the western property line and a running stream.
What that means for the schedule
Building on jurisdictional wetlands is legal. It requires a Section 404 permit from the Corps, usually with compensatory mitigation: buying or restoring wetland elsewhere to replace what is filled. Individual permits for impacts on this scale take months to years, and the Corps can require the applicant to show there is no practicable alternative that avoids the wetland.
Roughly 42 acres of the tract are not wetland, which is enough room for 400,000 square feet of building if the layout avoids the wet ground. The developer's own preliminary rendering places four data halls, a substation, a logistics building and parking across most of the site.
So the question is not whether anything can be built. It is which of these is true:
- The buildings fit on the dry ground, and the phase plan has been drawn to avoid the wetlands.
- Or the plan requires a federal permit that nobody has applied for, on a schedule that starts construction in January 2027.
Neither the agreement nor any public filing says which.
Two limits on the wetland figures
The delineation is a consultant's opinion, not an approved jurisdictional determination. Only the Corps decides what is jurisdictional, and it does so on request. Terracon says so in its own letter.
It is also three years old. Approved jurisdictional determinations expire after five years, and the legal definition of "waters of the United States" has been through federal litigation since 2023. A current determination could come out differently in either direction.
What to ask
- Has Liberty, or anyone acting for it, requested a jurisdictional determination or filed a Section 404 permit application for parcel 64-17?
- Which phases sit on delineated wetland, and how many acres would be filled?
- What is the compensatory mitigation plan, and what does it cost?
- Does the January 2027 construction start assume a federal permit? What happens to the phase deadlines if it is not issued?
- What is buildable after the FEMA Zone AE flood area and any local stream buffers are subtracted?