Project Orchid: How Google and DC Blox Built a Cable Landing Station Nobody Was Supposed to Know About
A data center under a code name. A building sized to avoid public review. A federal permit still pending. Inside the layered subterfuge that brought a Google submarine cable operation to Palm Coast — and the license that still has not been granted.
In October 2023, Florida Landmark Communities sold a 34-acre tract of land in Palm Coast’s Town Center to an Atlanta-based data center company called DC Blox for $3.5 million. The city knew. The county knew. Both governments signed non-disclosure agreements and said nothing.
“It is a state-qualified economic development project we are required to keep confidential,” a city spokesperson said when first asked about it.
The project had a code name: Project Orchid. What nobody said publicly — what the record now shows, document by document — is that Project Orchid was not really a DC Blox project at all. It was Google’s.
Layer One: The Code Name
DC Blox is an Atlanta-based data center operator. It builds cable landing stations — the onshore facilities where submarine internet cables emerge from the ocean and connect to land-based fiber networks. Its first such facility is in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Palm Coast would be its second.
When DC Blox approached Flagler Beach in early 2024 seeking easements to run cables under the beach, it came as Project Orchid. The name appeared in Flagler Beach City Commission meeting materials. It did not appear in Palm Coast records. Not because it wasn’t there — because Palm Coast wasn’t talking.
The Flagler Beach City Commission was not in on the secret. Its meetings are public. Its deliberations are public. When DC Blox asked for a perpetual easement on city rights-of-way to land up to six submarine cables, the commission deliberated in the open — and initially balked. The company’s first offer, $100,000 per cable, was rejected as inadequate for what would amount to a permanent encumbrance on public land.
It took four months of negotiation. The final deal, approved 4-to-1 in October 2024: $600,000 upfront whether DC Blox landed one cable or three, plus $200,000 per additional cable. A perpetual easement. Public land. Permanent commitment. And at the time of that vote, the federal license required to land a single cable did not yet exist.
Layer Two: The Shell Company
On February 20, 2025, DC Blox sold seven acres of its 34-acre Town Center parcel to a company called Tarpon Services LLC, incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Tarpon Services filed the site plan. Tarpon Services is the applicant of record on the development order. Tarpon Services took title to the parcel where the building now stands.
Tarpon Services LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Google LLC.
This is not an inference or allegation. It is stated in a filing before the Federal Communications Commission. In the application for the Sol cable landing license — file number SCL-LIC-20250910-00044, filed September 10, 2025 — Google’s subsidiary Starfish Infrastructure Inc. disclosed the ownership structure of the Palm Coast cable landing station. Tarpon Services LLC, the document states, “is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Google LLC.”
The chain runs: Tarpon Services LLC → Sea Coral Holdings LLC → Google LLC → XXVI Holdings Inc. → Alphabet Inc. Larry Page and Sergey Brin hold controlling voting interests in Alphabet.
A second Google subsidiary — Starfish Infrastructure Inc. — holds the FCC cable landing license application and will control the cable landing station once it is operational. Tarpon Services builds and owns the building. Starfish controls what goes in it. DC Blox provides colocation services under a 25-year agreement — as a contractor to Google, not as an owner.
The public was told this was a DC Blox project. The record shows it is a Google project.
Layer Three: The Threshold Maneuver
Under the City of Palm Coast’s Land Development Code, any development project exceeding 40,000 square feet requires review by the Planning and Land Development Regulation Board — a public body with public notice requirements, public hearings, and public comment.
The cable landing station as approved is 34,875 square feet, including a 52-square-foot guard house. It is 263 feet long, 131 feet wide, and rises 32 feet. It sits on seven acres south of Royal Palms Parkway and west of Town Center Boulevard.
The building was not always this size. A geotechnical engineering report prepared for the project in September 2024 described a planned facility of 50,460 square feet. Later plans showed 46,709 square feet. By the time the site plan was submitted, the footprint had been trimmed to 34,875 — just under the threshold that would have triggered public review.
City planners Phong Nguyen and Brian Hanson confirmed as much when pressed. The cable landing station, they wrote, “was able to be approved as its use falls under an agreement approved by City Council which allows for departures from the City’s Land Development Code.”
No public hearing was held. No neighbors were notified. No PLDRB review occurred. The city issued a development order on October 21, 2025 and a building permit on April 8, 2026 through its administrative review process — available to projects under 40,000 square feet.
On June 19, 2026, a DC Blox vice president went on a Palm Coast radio program and said the full buildout of the campus would be 100,000 square feet across two buildings. The City of Palm Coast issued a public correction the same week. The second building has not been permitted. A combined footprint of 100,000 square feet would require the full public review process that the first building was designed to avoid.
Layer Four: The PUD Amendment Nobody Discussed
Data centers were not always a permitted use in Town Center. The original 2003 Development of Regional Impact Development Order and Planned Unit Development agreement listed permitted land uses: residential, office, retail, non-retail commercial, institutional, movie theater, lodging, nursing home. No data center category existed.
On February 6, 2024, the Palm Coast City Council voted on second reading to approve an amendment to the Town Center PUD Development Agreement. The amendment was titled Ordinance 2024-XX, Amendment to the Town Center at Palm Coast Planned Unit Development Development Agreement. It was Item 5 on the agenda.
Buried among housekeeping provisions about residential unit types, fence requirements, and mixed-use building guidelines, one bullet point read: “Allow Data Centers as a permitted use in Town Service and Town Business areas of the Town Center PUD.”
The presenter was Jose Papa, AICP, Senior Planner. The Planning and Land Development Regulation Board had unanimously approved the amendment on October 18, 2023, with zero public comment. Neither the PLDRB hearing nor either of the two city council readings produced public discussion of the data center provision.
The city has since adopted new Land Development Code language that requires industrial zoning and a council supermajority vote for any future data center. City planners confirmed to FlaglerLive that the DC Blox facility is “an exception that would not be repeated.”
That same February 6, 2024 agenda also approved a $25 million FDOT grant for the Matanzas Woods Parkway Extension — the loop road that a private developer was contractually obligated to build under the 2010 Neoga Lakes Development of Regional Impact Development Order. Same night. Same council. The data center got its permission. The taxpayer got the road bill.
Layer Five: The Federal License That Does Not Exist
Landing a submarine cable in the United States requires a license from the Federal Communications Commission under the Cable Landing License Act of 1921. There is no exception for Google. There is no exception for a wholly owned American subsidiary. The license must be obtained before the cable lands.
Starfish Infrastructure Inc. filed its application for the Sol cable landing license on September 10, 2025 — nearly a year after the City of Flagler Beach approved its easement agreement with DC Blox. The FCC accepted the application for streamlined review on February 13, 2026.
Then the delays began.
On February 24, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice National Security Division — specifically the Telecom and Supply Chain Foreign Investment Review Section, the unit responsible for vetting the national security implications of submarine cable infrastructure — requested an extension of the public comment period. The reason: a lapse of funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The FCC granted it. New deadline: March 13, 2026.
On March 12, 2026, DOJ requested a second extension. Same reason. New deadline: March 27, 2026.
On March 26, 2026, DOJ requested a third extension. Same reason. New deadline: April 10, 2026.
Three consecutive extensions. Three consecutive citations of DHS funding disruption. The national security review of Google’s cable landing station application was conducted, at least in part, while the federal agency responsible for homeland security was operating without full funding — a consequence of the DOGE-era budget cuts that disrupted federal agency operations in early 2026.
The public comment period closed April 10, 2026 — two days after the City of Palm Coast issued the building permit. As of the date of publication, no FCC license grant appears in the public record for SCL-LIC-20250910-00044.
Cranes are on the site. The building is going up. The license has not been granted.
What the Record Shows
Taken individually, each element of this story has an explanation. A confidentiality statute. An administrative review threshold. A housekeeping agenda item. A shell company structure that is standard practice in large infrastructure projects. A federal review process that is still pending.
Taken together, the record shows a project that was engineered from the beginning to minimize public visibility at every decision point where public visibility was possible:
The project operated under a code name and state confidentiality protections for two years. The parcel was sold to a Google shell entity so the real owner’s name never appeared on the application. The data center use was quietly added to the Town Center PUD without public discussion. The building was sized below the threshold that would have required a public hearing. The federal license application was filed after local approvals were already in place. And construction began before the federal license was granted.
None of that is necessarily illegal. Some of it may be standard practice for large infrastructure projects operating in competitive markets. But the public of Palm Coast, Flagler Beach, and Flagler County was never given the opportunity to weigh in on any of it at any stage — not on the easement terms, not on the land use, not on the federal permitting, and not on the full scope of what is now described as a 100,000-square-foot, two-building campus.
The question is not whether Google should have a cable landing station in Palm Coast. The question is whether the people who live here were entitled to know about it before the cranes arrived.
Timeline of Record
Every date below is sourced to a document in the public record. Click the document link to read the primary source.
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July 5, 2022Palm Coast City Council approves the 2022 First Amended and Restated Town Center DRI Development Order, adding 550 residential units to Tracts 16 and 17. The permitted land use categories do not include data centers. Attorney of record: Michael D. Chiumento III.
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October 2023Florida Landmark Communities sells a 34-acre tract in Town Center to DC Blox for $3.5 million. Palm Coast and Flagler County sign non-disclosure agreements. The project is designated a state-qualified economic development initiative and kept confidential. Internal code name: Project Orchid.‣ Source: City of Palm Coast, FlaglerLive reporting
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October 18, 2023The Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Regulation Board holds a public hearing on a proposed amendment to the Town Center PUD Development Agreement. The amendment includes a provision to allow data centers as a permitted use in Town Service and Town Business areas. The PLDRB votes unanimously to approve. Zero public comments are made.
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January 16, 2024Palm Coast City Council hears the Town Center PUD amendment on first reading. The item is continued to February 6.
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February 6, 2024 Key VotePalm Coast City Council votes on second reading to approve Ordinance 2024-XX, Amendment to the Town Center PUD Development Agreement. Item 5 on the agenda. The ordinance explicitly adds: “Allow Data Centers as a permitted use in Town Service and Town Business areas of the Town Center PUD.” The provision is not discussed openly. Presenter: Jose Papa, AICP, Senior Planner. On the same agenda, Items 8 and 9 approve a $25 million FDOT grant for the Matanzas Woods Parkway Extension — a road a private developer was contractually obligated to build.
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February 20, 2025DC Blox sells the 7-acre building parcel (Lot 7B) from its 34-acre Town Center holding to Tarpon Services LLC, a Wilmington, Delaware entity. Tarpon Services LLC is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Google LLC. Recorded in Flagler County Official Records, Book 2940, Page 1267. The remaining approximately 27 acres (Lot 7A) stays in the name of DCB Orchid LLC — a DC Blox entity. Unlike Tarpon Services, DCB Orchid LLC does not appear anywhere in the FCC proceeding, and its Google-subsidiary status (if any) is not established in the federal record.‣ Flagler County Official Records — OR Book 2940 PG 1267 (Tarpon Services deed, not yet in library)
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September 2024A geotechnical engineering report prepared for the project describes a planned facility of 50,460 square feet — well above the 40,000-square-foot threshold that would require PLDRB public review. Later plans reduce the footprint to 46,709 square feet. The final submitted site plan shows 34,875 square feet.‣ Source: FlaglerLive reporting citing site plan and engineering documents
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October 2024Flagler Beach City Commission approves a perpetual easement agreement with DC Blox for use of city rights-of-way to land submarine cables at South 6th Street. Final terms: $600,000 upfront plus $200,000 per additional cable beyond three. Vote: 4 to 1. At the time of this vote, no FCC cable landing license application has been filed.‣ Source: FlaglerLive reporting — Flagler Beach easement agreement (not yet in library)
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September 10, 2025 FCC FilingStarfish Infrastructure Inc. — an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Google LLC — files application SCL-LIC-20250910-00044 with the FCC for a license to construct, land, and operate the Sol submarine cable system, connecting Florida, Bermuda, the Azores, and Spain. This is the first federal authorization action taken for the cable.
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October 21, 2025City of Palm Coast issues a development order for the cable landing station at 1035 Town Center Boulevard. Administrative review only — no public hearing. The approved building is 34,875 square feet.‣ Source: City of Palm Coast administrative records (not yet in library)
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November 5, 2025Survey conducted by Surveying and Mapping LLC, Jacksonville, documenting the proposed FPL easement area on Lot 7B (Tarpon Services) and Lot 7A (DCB Orchid). Survey confirms both parcel IDs and their respective owners.
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November 19, 2025Mark Fumia, Manager, of 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 — Google’s headquarters address — signs an Underground Easement granting Florida Power & Light access to install electric infrastructure on the Tarpon Services parcel. Notarized November 19, 2025 in Santa Clara County, California. Recorded December 3, 2025 in Flagler County Official Records, Instrument 2025048478, Book 3010, Page 228.
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February 13, 2026 FCC ActionThe FCC places the Sol cable license application on public notice as accepted for filing under streamlined processing (DA-26-155, Report No. SCL-00595S). Public comment period opens. The notice confirms Tarpon Services LLC will construct and own the Florida cable landing station and names it — along with Starfish Infrastructure Inc. — as an indirect wholly owned Google LLC subsidiary. DCB Orchid LLC is not named in this notice.
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February 24, 2026The U.S. Department of Justice National Security Division — Telecom and Supply Chain Foreign Investment Review Section — requests a two-week extension of the FCC comment deadline, citing a lapse of funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
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February 27, 2026FCC grants first DOJ extension. New comment deadline: March 13, 2026.
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March 12, 2026DOJ files a second extension request. Same reason: DHS funding lapse.
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March 19, 2026FCC grants second DOJ extension. New comment deadline: March 27, 2026.
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March 26, 2026DOJ files a third extension request. Same reason: DHS funding lapse. This is the third consecutive two-week extension sought by the DOJ National Security Division while conducting Team Telecom review of the application.‣ Source: FCC Public Notice DA-26-296, March 27, 2026 (not yet in library)
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March 27, 2026FCC grants third DOJ extension. New and final comment deadline: April 10, 2026.‣ Source: FCC Public Notice DA-26-296, March 27, 2026 (not yet in library)
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April 8, 2026 Building PermitCity of Palm Coast issues a building permit for the cable landing station at 1035 Town Center Boulevard. Construction begins. The FCC public comment period is still open — it will not close for two more days.‣ Source: City of Palm Coast Building Services (not yet in library)
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April 10, 2026FCC public comment period closes on Sol cable license application SCL-LIC-20250910-00044. No FCC license grant has been issued. Construction is underway.
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June 19, 2026A DC Blox vice president states on a Palm Coast radio program that the full buildout of the campus will be 100,000 square feet across two buildings. The City of Palm Coast issues a public correction the same week. Building Two has not been permitted. A two-building campus totaling 100,000 square feet would require full PLDRB public review.‣ Source: Radio program and City of Palm Coast correction statement
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June 28, 2026 As of PublicationNo FCC cable landing license grant for SCL-LIC-20250910-00044 appears in the public record. Construction of Building One is underway at 1035 Town Center Boulevard. Building Two has not been applied for or permitted. The federal authorization required for the entire project’s stated purpose — landing submarine cables — has not been granted.‣ FCC submarine cable licenses granted list, checked June 28, 2026: Sol / Starfish Infrastructure not listed