Cow Palace & San Mateo Event Center Data Centers: What Is Proposed, and What It Signals for Nearby Parcels
Global Stack, a data-center startup founded in March 2026, has floated preliminary proposals to build 8-to-10-megawatt "edge" data centers, each paired with a multi-level parking garage and a helicopter landing pad, on California fairgrounds, including the Cow Palace in Daly City and the San Mateo County Event Center. Both are early-stage pitches under a proposed 100-year land lease; as of mid-2026 neither owner has approved anything, no application has entered formal city permitting or CEQA review, and a near-identical pitch was already rejected at the Calistoga Fairgrounds. For nearby parcels the signal is less the data center itself, which is small at roughly 5 acres and 10 MW, than the precedent it sets: it marks these large, underused public fairground sites as redevelopment candidates, and that tends to lift land-value expectations and zoning pressure across the surrounding submarket long before a single permit is pulled.
What Global Stack Is Proposing
Global Stack, a California company founded in March 2026, is pitching a repeatable package to fairgrounds across the state: a small “edge” data center, a multi-level parking garage, and a helicopter landing pad, all built on underused fairground land under a 100-year ground leasethat would give the venue a long-term rent stream without public funding. The company has said it wants to reach as many as 70 of California’s roughly 80 fairgrounds by 2030, and public records show it has approached at least eight so far, including several in the Bay Area.
Two of those sites sit in San Mateo County:
- Cow Palace (2600 Geneva Ave, Daly City).The proposal is an 8-to-10-megawatt data center on roughly 5 acres of the arena’s land, plus a parking structure and a helipad. It would develop arena-owned land rather than replace the venue. Cow Palace CEO Allison Keaney has said the fairground is “still evaluating the proposal and has not made any decisions,” noting that fairgrounds increasingly lean on long-term tenants to offset the swings of the events business.
- San Mateo County Event Center (San Mateo).The same three-part package has been discussed for the county’s roughly 48-acre grounds. Event Center CEO Dana Stoehr has characterized the conversations as “preliminary talks.”
The parking and helipad are pitched as amenities: the garage would add an estimated 500 to 1,500 spaces per venue for events, and the helipad is framed for emergency and disaster response, with the data center designed to keep running during power outages.
Where It Stands in the Planning & Permit Process
Both proposals are early-stage and unapproved. Neither venue has committed, and nothing has been filed for formal city entitlement or environmental review as a data center. The approval paths for the two sites actually differ, which matters for how, and how fast, either could move:
- The Cow Palace is operated by the state-chartered 1-A District Agricultural Association, so a ground lease and development would run through that state board and its review in addition to Daly City and San Mateo County permitting and CEQA.
- The San Mateo County Event Center is county-operated, a distinct governance and approval track under the County of San Mateo.
There is a separate, earlier signal worth noting at the Cow Palace: in November 2024 the 1-A District Agricultural Association filed a Notice of Exemption for a Master Disposition and Development Agreement with an entity called CowPalace DC, LLC, contemplating future mixed-use residential and commercial/industrial redevelopment of the 68-acre site (2 acres of which lie in San Francisco). That filing predates the 2026 Global Stack pitch and is a different instrument, but it shows the fairground’s board was already moving toward a long-term ground-lease redevelopment framework before the data-center proposal surfaced.
The most instructive data point on trajectory is what happened elsewhere: the Calistoga Fairgrounds advisory committee rejected a near-identical Global Stack pitch over noise and pollution concerns. Critics across the affected communities have raised the same worries, noise, pollution, and water and power demand, that follow data-center proposals generally. For a project still at the presentation stage, that is the realistic base rate to underwrite against.
What Large-Scale Commercial Development Signals for the Submarket
The direct physical impact of a 5-acre, 10 MW edge facility is modest. The market impact is indirect, and it starts well before construction. A credible commercial or mixed-use proposal on a large anchor site does three things to the parcels around it:
- It re-anchors land values. Owners of nearby lots reset their price expectations to the highest contemplated use, and brokers begin citing the project in comps. Land, not the building, reprices first.
- It raises zoning pressure. A high-profile use on a public site pulls forward rezoning and general-plan conversations, and it strengthens the hand of owners seeking upzoning or variances nearby.
- It surfaces development opportunity, unevenly. The upside concentrates in the parcels that already carry unused entitlement, underbuilt lots, surface parking, and older light-industrial sites, not evenly across the map.
AddressIntel is built to separate signal from headline here. Rather than infer a submarket-wide bump, it scores each parcel for redevelopment headroom, SB 9 and ADU eligibility, and permit history, and it tracks actual permit activity daily. Across the city of San Mateo alone, AddressIntel scores tens of thousands of residential parcels, a majority of which screen as SB 9-eligible, which is the latent density this kind of development pressure tends to activate. To see where real capacity sits around either site, read the parcel-level data, not the press release.
Permit Activity in the Submarket — July 2026
| City | New-build | Demolition | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Mateo | 42 | 0 | $1,698,000 |
Source: AddressIntel SF Peninsula permit & sales ingestion, July 2026. Counts are for the cycle and move month to month; “n/a” means the city’s building department published no classifiable work type for the period, not zero activity. This page reflects the most recently published edition.
What This Means for Developers & Owners
If you own or are underwriting parcels near the Cow Palace or the San Mateo County Event Center, treat these proposals as an early-warning flag, not a closed deal. The near-term move is to map the latent capacity around each site now, while the outcome is uncertain and pricing has not fully repriced, and to watch the permit record for the first formal filing, which is the point at which the proposal stops being talk. Pair this page with our infill parcel guide, the Peninsula entitlement process explainer, the live deal screener, the building permit tracker, and the San Mateo city dashboard.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is being proposed at the Cow Palace and the San Mateo County Event Center?
Global Stack, a company founded in March 2026, has pitched building a small (8-to-10-megawatt) "edge" data center on underused land at each site, bundled with a multi-level parking garage adding roughly 500 to 1,500 spaces and a helicopter landing pad for emergency use, all under a proposed 100-year land lease. At the Cow Palace the data center would sit on about 5 acres of the roughly 68-acre site and would not replace the arena. The San Mateo County Event Center pitch covers a comparable footprint on its 48-acre grounds. Both are described by the venues as preliminary talks.
Where does the proposal stand in the planning and permit process?
Very early. Both venues characterize the discussions as preliminary and say no decision has been made. Nothing has been submitted for formal city entitlement or CEQA review as a data center. The Cow Palace is run by a state-chartered District Agricultural Association, so a ground lease and development there would run through that board and state review on top of Daly City and San Mateo County permitting; the San Mateo County Event Center is county-operated, a different approval path. A similar Global Stack pitch was rejected by the Calistoga Fairgrounds advisory committee over noise and pollution concerns, which is a useful base rate for how these land at other fairgrounds.
What does a large commercial project like this signal for nearby parcel values?
A credible large-scale commercial or mixed-use proposal on a big anchor site reprices the land around it before anything is built. Owners of nearby parcels re-anchor their expectations to the highest contemplated use, brokers cite the project in comps, and speculative interest rises in the blocks with the most latent zoning capacity. AddressIntel tracks that latent capacity parcel by parcel, scoring redevelopment headroom, SB 9 and ADU eligibility, and permit history, so you can see which surrounding lots actually carry unused entitlement rather than guessing from the headline.
Is the data center itself large enough to change the submarket?
Not on its own. At around 5 acres and 8 to 10 MW, this is an "edge" facility, orders of magnitude smaller than the hyperscale campuses that reshape a region. Its footprint and power draw are modest. The market effect comes from the precedent and the process: a 100-year commercial lease on a public fairground signals that these anchor sites are in play, which pulls forward redevelopment and rezoning conversations for the surrounding parcels.
How can I track development and permit activity in this submarket?
AddressIntel ingests building and demolition permits daily from Daly City, San Mateo, and the other northern San Mateo County jurisdictions, and scores every parcel for redevelopment and entitlement headroom. The live permit tracker, the city dashboards, and the deal screener let you watch new filings and underused lots in the exact blocks around the Cow Palace and the Event Center as the proposals move, or stall.
Sources & Further Reading
- DataCenterDynamics, “Global Stack pitches Edge data center at rodeo-focused indoor arena in California” — datacenterdynamics.com
- SFist, “Developer Eyes Cow Palace In Plan to Build Data Centers at Eight Bay Area Fairgrounds” (July 9, 2026) — sfist.com
- KALW, “Historic fairgrounds near San Francisco could become data center site” (July 12, 2026) — kalw.org
- California Planning & Development Report, News Briefs (July 14, 2026) — cp-dr.com
- CEQAnet, “Cow Palace Development” Notice of Exemption (SCH filing 2024111029) — ceqanet.lci.ca.gov
Reporting reflects publicly available sources as of July 15, 2026. These are preliminary proposals; details and status may change. Permit and parcel figures are from AddressIntel’s ingestion and are updated on this page automatically.
Track This Submarket as It Moves
Watch new building and demolition permits around the Cow Palace and the San Mateo County Event Center as they are filed, and see the parcels near each site ranked by redevelopment and entitlement headroom, in the AddressIntel permit tracker and deal screener.