SAND SPRINGS — A judge’s ruling Wednesday dealt a partial defeat to a group fi ghting to stop a Sand Springs data center development by Google.
Tulsa County District Judge Tracy Priddy granted companion motions by the city of Sand Springs and the Ringle Family LLC to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Protect Sand Springs Alliance and others.
But the judge gave the alliance and the other plaintiffs an opportunity, providing them 20 days in which to amend their lawsuit to resolve deficiencies.
The hourlong hearing wasn’t about the merits of the case, but focused on whether the plaintiffs had standing to challenge the data center development.
The lawsuit filed March 5 by the alliance, a group of residents who live near the 827-acre site formerly known as the Ringle Ranch, alleges that the city improperly zoned the site based on its earlier alleged illegal annexation of the property. That annexation is the subject of a separate lawsuit.
Kyle Schmidt with Protect Sand Springs Alliance said that their fight isn’t over.
“Yesterday’s ruling was not a complete dismissal, and we are very much still in the fight. The case was only dismissed in its current form, and we have the opportunity to amend our petition, which we will do,” he said. “The merits of the rezoning case haven’t even been heard, and the annexation lawsuit is still proceeding as well as the Land Legacy suit in Osage County.”
Schmidt said the court ruling was just a bump in the road.
“This was just one small bump in the very long and complicated road to holding the city accountable for their greedy land grab and abuse of the Rock Community,” he said. “We’re looking forward to having these cases heard on the merits and bringing this saga to an end so the citizens who chose this rural way of life can continue to do so in peace.”
Sand Springs City Manager Mike Carter said the City was pleased with the court ruling.
“We kind of expected that and we respect the judge's discretion to try to allow them to amend it because I think the judge was trying to really give them a chance. But from the city's perspective, this has been our contention the whole time,” he said.
The Ringle family approached the city in May 2025 to request that the property near Oklahoma 97 and 56th Street North be annexed into the city limits.
The City Council approved the annexation the following month. In October, 2025, the Ringles again approached the city to ask that the property be rezoned from Agriculture to Industrial Light with a Planned Unit Development overlay to allow for the development of a data center, later identified as belonging to Google.
In May, the council unanimously approved the economic development project plan and a development agreement with Horizon Land Development LLC and Design LLC, acting on behalf of Google.
Project Spring will consist of at least one phase – which includes one individual data center – and may consist of as many as three phases that total as many as three individual data centers.
On July 1, the Ringle Family LLC sold the Ringle Ranch to Project Spring LLC. A day later, Project Spring LLC sold the property to Horizon Land Development.
“The land has been sold now,” Carter said. “Horizon Development, which is a subsidiary of Google, owns the property now. And so that part of it is moving forward. And there's just a couple pieces of litigation to go through and then we think the project will start. So, I can't speak for Google on what their timeline is or plans, but that's my belief.”
Carter said Google would become the city’s largest taxpayer.
“Right now, it is the sales tax we collect from Walmart, but this would far exceed that,” he said.