FORT PIERCE, Fla. — What was once the Florida School for Boys at Okeechobee, will soon be the site of a data center.
The 205-acre campus off of US-441 in rural Okeechobee County has sat vacant since the Eckerd Youth Development Center closed at the end of 2020, when the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice did not renew its contract with the private company running the facility.
WATCH: Indian River State College shares future plans for site with WPTV
In 2023, Indian River State College (IRSC) took over the land.
“We were involved with the Economic Development Council in Okeechobee, and they talked about this property and how they wanted to bring either Amazon or some distribution, or potentially even just plant it and grow crops,” said Dr. Michael Hageloh, the executive vice president of strategic initiatives at IRSC.
When Hageloh visited the land, he noticed markers for buried fiberoptic cables running along 441, past the campus.
“That's a gold mine in the ground that literally went right by the property,” Hageloh said.
That’s how he got the idea to build a data center.
Thanks to a $1.5 million rural infrastructure grant just approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis, IRSC President Tim Moore said the college can begin making that data center a reality.
“We think this is both an opportunity for us, an opportunity for education, an opportunity for economics,” Moore told WPTV Wednesday. “Our economy has exploded online since the pandemic. And Florida, in its population explosion and its business-to-business explosion, has been woefully behind the curve. And we're offering a new approach to that."
But there’s another reality tied to that 205 acres.
The Florida School for Boys at Okeechobee was run by the state from the time it opened in 1959 until it became privately operated in the early 1980s.
Boys were sent there as punishment for breaking the law, and brutally beaten by employees. It left survivors traumatized to this day.
WATCH RELATED COVERAGE: Survivors of abuse at Okeechobee's Florida School for Boys
"In my head—I've always denied—it doesn't affect me... And for some reason it does," said James Anderson, who was sent to the school as a teen and is now in his seventies. "I remember the sound— that sound. That sound when leather hits you— leather hits the flesh.”
“I have trust issues,” said Michael Anderson (no relation to James, but they knew each other at the school). “I can't trust anybody, because I've seen what they've done. I know what they're capable of doing.”
As authorities launched investigations in the 2010s, the state-run reform school, along with a similar reform school in the panhandle town of Marianna, became synonymous with abuse.
Eventually, the state apologized to the survivors of both schools and is in the process of compensating them for their suffering.
Part of the Marianna campus, once known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, is now protected as a monument to honoring the victims.
Moore said he will do something similar to honor the boys who endured abuse at Okeechobee.
“Society that forgets its history is doomed to repeat it. Right? I think that whatever the experiences are, we as citizens have to be very full and forthright in our recognition of what happened before us,” Moore said. “We're looking right now at certain select buildings on that property to preserve in perpetuity or repurpose, and then placard to make sure that people understood what went on there as they come through.”
While a team of forensic anthropologists from the University of South Florida uncovered dozens of unmarked graves at the Dozier school in 2012, a 2015 search conducted by the Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office of the local campus did not lead to human remains.
Moore said IRSC spent roughly a year surveying the land once again to make sure no one was buried there. They, too, did not find any remains.
According to Moore, the initial phase of this data center project will cost about $10 million. He hopes to get most of that funding from private entities that want to do business on the campus. Moore expects it to initially create about 200 jobs.
WATCH BELOW: Arthur G. Dozier School attendees share their stories with WPTV
“I think the community has evolved," Moore said. "I think that the use of this property-- the best use of this property-- and kind of the legacy which it stands on, is to turn a page and go do something different.”
Paul Elgin, who was sent to the Dozier school as a child, is part of a group of survivors called The White House Boys. The group spent years in Tallahassee fighting for the memorial in Marianna, the apology, and the monetary compensation, which lawmakers approved unanimously last year.
“If you’re helping somebody, come on. Bring it on. If you’re helping a human, bring it on," Elgin said, when asked his opinion on the data center plan.
Three other White House Boys who were with him nodded in agreement.
WPTV has spent the past year digging into the dark past of Florida’s reform schools for boys.
You can catch our special report on "The Okeechobee Boys" on Wednesday, April 9 at 7 p.m. only on WPTV.
