Data Centers: Daily Notes | June 16, 2026
Nashville's mayor orders a citywide review as Google bets another $1.5 billion on Alabama and moratoriums spread from Indiana to Tennessee and Maine, while a $10 billion Texas project splits two small towns.
At A Glance 🔽
- Nashville, TN: Mayor signs an executive order launching a multi-department review of large data centers.
- Bridgeport, AL: Google adds $1.5 billion to its Jackson County campus and pledges to cover all its own power costs.
- Boone County, IN: Commissioners approve a one-year moratorium, effective today through June 15, 2027.
- Anderson County, TN: Commissioners pass a two-year moratorium on data centers, crypto mining, and battery storage.
- Spartanburg County, SC: Council votes to draft a moratorium ordinance as a second project surfaces.
- Gorham, ME: Town Council backs a 180-day pause.
- McLean County, IL: Board adopts 13 rules, making it one of the most restrictive counties in the state.
- West Palm Beach, FL: Property owners sue for control of the 202-acre Project Tango site weeks before key hearings.
- Massillon, OH: Council extends its citywide ban 60 days.
- Ross & Lacy Lakeview, TX: Two towns clash over who controls a proposed $10 billion, near-gigawatt campus.
Nashville, Tennessee
Mayor Freddie O'Connell signed an executive order launching a multi-department review of large data centers across the city, days after residents packed a Metro Planning Commission meeting over a proposed facility near the Nashville Zoo.
The order directs Metro departments to examine how large data centers affect neighborhoods, including power and water usage, traffic, air quality, and other infrastructure demands. The review targets facilities that cover at least 20,000 square feet or require five megawatts or more of electricity. The action lands as Metro Council moves on a temporary moratorium, which cleared its first reading on a 26-1 vote earlier this month.
Metro Planning staff are expected to keep reviewing the DC Blox zoo proposal before making a recommendation to the Planning Commission later this month.
Jackson County, Alabama
Google will invest $1.5 billion to expand its Bridgeport data center, and committed to pay for all of the facility's electricity costs.
The build-out runs through this year and next at the site, which opened in 2018 on the Tennessee Valley Authority's retired Widows Creek coal plant. Construction will bring 1,000 contract workers to the area, and Google has so far been contracted to supply 300 megawatts of energy to the region. Covering both the energy and infrastructure costs aligns with the Trump administration's Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which asks companies to shoulder facility costs rather than pass them to neighbors.
Google paired the announcement with local spending: $2 million for an Energy Impact Fund to make utility bills more affordable, run with TVA and the Community Action Agency of Northeast Alabama, and $550,000 for STEM kits for students in grades 4-8 across the Jackson County School District.
Boone County, Indiana
Sean Horan
Boone County commissioners approved a one-year moratorium on new data center developments in unincorporated areas, effective June 16 and running through June 15, 2027.
The pause freezes the filing, review, and acceptance of applications for new facilities while the county studies how the developments affect land use, infrastructure, utilities, agriculture, and rural character. The Boone County Area Plan Commission recommended the move on May 6 and reaffirmed it after a public hearing on June 3.
The moratorium will not touch the Meta campus already underway in the LEAP Innovation and Research District in Lebanon. That 1,500-acre project is slated for 13 buildings, including 10 data center buildings, and is expected to support roughly 300 operational jobs once finished, along with more than 4,000 construction jobs at peak.
Anderson County, Tennessee
Anderson County commissioners approved a two-year moratorium on new cryptocurrency mining, data processing, and battery storage development after residents packed a Monday night meeting.
Several speakers urged caution, raising concerns about the county's rural character and about continuous noise and low-frequency vibration from facilities that run around the clock. The county currently has no specific regulations for crypto mining or large-scale data centers.
District 1 Commissioner Chad McNabb framed the pause as time to gather information, consult experts, and study what other municipalities are doing. "It could have impacts that could go on for 30 years," he said. "We don't want to make that decision in 30 days." County leaders stressed the measure is temporary, and said any final decision on regulations could be years away.
Spartanburg County, South Carolina
Spartanburg County Council took its first step toward a moratorium on new data center construction, voting on June 15 to direct officials to draft a banning ordinance.
The motion would pause new facilities until the state legislature sets governing rules and the county reviews its own ordinances. The move follows discontent over the NorthMark data center on Pine Street, a 450-megawatt project powered by gas-burning turbines that will not be stopped by the moratorium. It also comes as a second facility, referred to as Project Lighthouse, recently applied for a permit at 300 Jones Road.
Gorham, Maine
Gorham's Town Council backed a 180-day moratorium on new data center proposals on June 2.
For the next six months, officials will study what regulations, if any, should govern large AI facilities, and Town Councilor Seven Siegel said the freeze could be extended another 180 days if needed. There are no active data center plans in the town right now. Before the hearing, some residents said similar concerns apply to a proposed Amazon warehouse distribution center and urged the town to weigh large industrial projects more broadly.
McLean County, Illinois
The McLean County Board approved 13 rules for future data centers, making the county one of the most restrictive in the state.
The regulations cover noise limits, landscaping screens, water sourcing and limitations, and battery capacities. Applicants will also have to give the board details on anticipated impacts, electricity usage, and a decommissioning plan.
Some residents who spoke during public comment thanked the board but pushed for tighter wording, questioning whether a 500-foot setback from existing homes is enough and calling for facilities to use only recycled wastewater rather than fresh water from local aquifers, rivers, and lakes.
West Palm Beach, Florida
A legal battle between two property owners is complicating the Project Tango AI data center proposal, just weeks before key public hearings on the 202-acre site off Southern Boulevard.
WPB Logistics, which owns about 60 acres, filed an emergency lawsuit against PBA Holdings, the longtime owner of the rest of the land. The complaint claims PBA Holdings spent years pursuing approvals for Project Tango while delaying development of the smaller owner's property, and asks a judge to force PBA Holdings to withdraw its master plan application before a July 2 zoning hearing and a July 15 county commission vote.
The filing points to a 2021 agreement that originally called for warehouse development. With demand for AI data centers surging, both parties now want a share of the market, setting up a potentially lengthy court fight. The proposal continues to draw strong opposition from residents, parents, and the teachers' union.
Massillon, Ohio
Massillon City Council extended its data center moratorium another 60 days at its June 15 meeting, continuing a citywide stay that was set to expire June 22.
The extension prohibits any data center activity through mid-to-late August while members keep working on zoning rules for developers. The proposed legislation, given a second reading June 15, would define smaller data centers as 100,000 square feet or less and larger ones at that size or above, assigning the smaller to light-industrial zoning and the larger to heavy industrial. Members appear to favor steering data centers mainly toward heavy-industrial areas farther from homes.
Discussion on amendments is slated for a June 29 work session.
Ross and Lacy Lakeview, Texas
A proposed $10 billion AI data center has split two intertwined central Texas towns, pitting their longtime mayors against each other.
Infrakey, a newly established developer, bought a 520-acre plot of unincorporated farmland next to Ross last summer for a campus with a power capacity of nearly one gigawatt. Ross, a farming town of about 200 with no taxing authority, sits directly beside the site but has no way to stop or shape it. Lacy Lakeview, a suburban municipality of 7,500 some seven miles south, is moving to annex the land and stands to collect up to $50 million a year in taxes.
The divide traces to Texas land-use rules and to a December 2025 memorandum of understanding in which Lacy Lakeview agreed to pursue annexation and explore supplying treated wastewater for cooling. The arrangement is nonbinding, and not everyone is sold: a newly elected Lacy Lakeview council member ran specifically to challenge the plan, and a local state representative has questioned whether the project is a genuine hyperscale build or a speculative fundraising effort.
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