LaPorte, Indiana

Indiana - Microsoft Local

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Microsoft broke ground on a data center campus in LaPorte that the mayor says surpasses all private investment in the city's history combined, an investment topping $1 billion.

Crews have spent weeks grading the 500-acre site on Boyd Boulevard, and building construction is set to begin in less than 30 days. Microsoft plans to operate three buildings by 2029, then add three more as quickly as it can build them. Running all six will take more than 600 full-time employees, with another 11 structures planned later on 1,300 adjacent acres the company is buying. At full ramp, more than 2,000 construction workers will be on site daily over a roughly 10-year buildout.

Microsoft decided earlier this year not to seek tax abatement on any of its data center projects nationwide, so LaPorte expects tens of millions of dollars annually for the city and several million for the school corporation under a 20-year agreement. The company is also paying the city $17 million for more than 100 acres of municipally owned land included in the purchase. The school board had weighed asking voters for a property tax increase but dropped the idea given the incoming revenue.

Yellowstone County, Montana

Data center opponents have submitted a ballot initiative seeking some control over the projects in Yellowstone County, where Quantica hopes to build a data center and power plant near the substation at Broadview.

Quantica's applications add up to 8,835 megawatts, about five times what NorthWestern Energy owns for generation across Montana. The proposed gas plants alone would generate 1,785 megawatts, more than the combined capacity of every gas plant operating statewide. The facility would tie into power lines running from Colstrip to the West Coast.

If the initiative qualifies, county residents could vote on the matter in November. Backers want a mechanism to weigh in on energy consumption and environmental impacts before a project of this size moves forward.

Henry County, Illinois

The Henry County Board approved a 12-month moratorium on data centers on Thursday, alongside a separate pause on carbon sequestration projects.

Board member Jill Darin, who introduced the data center motion, said her committee wanted time to determine what ordinances are needed around environmental and residential impacts as the facilities proliferate nationwide. To the county's knowledge, no landowners have been contacted about a data center, and Darin described the move as proactive.

Lake County, Illinois

Lake County Initiates Public Hearing on Temporary Moratorium for Data Centers in Unincorporated Areas

Lake County, Illinois

The Lake County Board voted to pause data center approvals in unincorporated areas while it develops regulations, with one member saying the facilities bring "serious concerns".

The board approved a resolution directing the Zoning Board of Appeals to hold a public hearing on amendments that would define data centers and establish an eight-month temporary moratorium. That hearing is expected later this summer. The board's action did not yet impose the eight-month pause, but it did authorize the Planning, Building and Development department to halt review of data center applications for up to four months. Data centers are not currently defined or regulated under county ordinances.

Citrus County, Florida

The Citrus County Planning and Development Commission voted to recommend denying a proposal to expand an industrial park to 1,356 acres for large-scale data centers, siding with residents after a nine-hour meeting.

The Deltona Corporation sought to rezone the land from residential to heavy industrial but could not say definitively what would go there, floating the possibility of a hyperscale facility and citing nondisclosure agreements that county officials said they were hearing about for the first time. Under questioning, a Deltona attorney said the developer aims to attract a data center with 450 to 500 megawatts of capacity that could use as many as 140,000 gallons of water in its first year. Deltona began the rezoning last summer after Amazon inquired about the site, but the company has since lost interest.

More than 200 residents turned out, every speaker opposed, criticizing a lack of transparency and few community benefits in an area that prizes its rural character. The vote is a recommendation only; the County Commission has final say and is expected to take it up July 14, unless it grants Deltona's request to delay until November.

Elk River, Minnesota

The Elk River City Council took no action on a proposed 33-megawatt data center at a June 15 hearing dominated by opposition, continuing the matter to July 6.

Timeline

History April 27, 2026 · Ordinance amendment and conditional use permit applications submitted to City of Elk River May 16, 2026 · Notice of Public Hearing published by City of Elk River May 26, 2026 @ 6:30p · Public hearing @ Planning Commission meeting (video, resources) June 15, 2026 @ 6:00p · Public hearing @ City Council meeting (video, resources) Upcoming Written public comment may be submitted to the City of Elk River Community Development Department. Contact the department directly to confirm submission deadlines and procedures for each hearing date.

Elk River Data Center

Michael Margulies of Elk River Capital LLC, operating as Swervo Development, wants to convert a vacant 62,000-square-foot former injection molding facility at 19178 Industrial Blvd. NW into a data center using a closed-loop glycol cooling system that needs water only during initial charging. Because data centers are not permitted in the city's Light Industrial district, the developer needs both an ordinance amendment and a conditional use permit; the city split those into separate phases, with the Planning Commission revisiting the amendment June 23 📆.

Elk River Municipal Utilities General Manager Mark Hanson said the city's system has capacity, with about 206 megawatts available against a peak demand near 76, and that the developer would cover all infrastructure costs and prepay electric bills. Residents pushed back anyway, raising concerns about low-frequency noise, property values, and proximity to schools.

Xenia, Ohio

Xenia City Council introduced a one-year moratorium on establishing data centers within the city, with a vote and public hearing set for June 25.

City Manager Brent Merriman said data centers are increasingly locating in Ohio for lower construction costs and water availability, but have not historically fit within the city's zoning code. The proposed pause would cover the submission, consideration, or approval of any application to establish, develop, or convert a structure into a data center, giving staff time to evaluate zoning while state and federal discussions continue. Mayor Ethan Reynolds moved on June 11 to extend the proposed pause from six months to one year.

Councilmember JD Mackiewicz said the main concern is facilities consuming 20 megawatts of power, more than twice what the city uses in a single building, on top of worries about water use, noise, and heat. If approved on June 25, the ordinance would take effect July 25.

Emporia, Kansas

Emporia leaders are drafting water regulations ahead of a possible data center, working to create a class of large water users and set what they would pay.

City Manager Trey Cocking told the City Commission the need is concrete, with a proposed data center, the Flint Hills Digital Campus, in the picture. "This is real, we know exactly what this looks like," he said, adding that the city wants a policy governing large users and stronger financial security from any developer before proceeding. The draft policy is intended to protect ratepayers and prevent harm to the city.

The commission says it has not had conversations with the proposed campus beyond an initial review of capacity. A special planning meeting and public hearing on a digital overlay district that would encompass the data center is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday at the WLW Civic Auditorium.

Whitley County, Indiana

Whitley County planners are opening a public listening session on June 24 to shape potential data center zoning before any formal proposals arrive.

The Plan Commission will gather feedback at 7 p.m. in the county Government Center in Columbia City, with no votes or final decisions on the agenda. Planners say they have fielded inquiries about possible sites but received no formal applications, and want to set expectations and standards early. Officials are weighing electricity demand, water consumption, environmental impacts, and compatibility with surrounding land uses.

Planner Brent Bockelman is expected to present an overview of data center development and zoning considerations, and the session will be livestreamed. Residents who cannot attend may submit written comments through July 6.

La Crosse County, Wisconsin

The La Crosse County Board of Supervisors approved an 18-month moratorium on new data center decisions and development on Thursday, pausing county action while a special committee studies the industry's environmental and economic impacts.

The board created the committee in May and tasked it with recommending future county policies. Supporters say the pause buys time to understand the local effects, and they note it does not bar data centers outright.

🎏 Industry Watch

A new study just dropped...

Do data centers actually raise your power bill?

Have Data Centers Raised Your Electric Bill? Causal Evidence from the United States

We estimate that data centers caused average retail electricity rates to fall modestly in the United States from 2015 to 2024 using an instrumental variables approach. Despite prevailing sentiment, the finding is consistent with economic reasoning: existing large power system fixed costs, economies of scale in transmission and distribution, and declining unit costs for generation imply that durable demand growth lowers average prices. We find patterns of economies of scale for transmission, distribution, and generation costs as well as within and across retail customer classes. We caution that future supply constraints could reverse the effect.

arXiv.orgAsa Watten

A new working paper, posted June 18, challenges the idea behind a lot of the moratorium push. Asa Watten, John Bistline, and Geoffrey Blanford (arXiv:2606.19777) find that data centers slightly lowered average U.S. electricity rates from 2015 to 2024, rather than raising them. The reasoning is simple: the grid has big fixed costs to cover no matter what, so when a large, steady customer plugs in and uses more of the existing system, those costs get spread across more power sold, and the average price ticks down where there's room to grow. To pin down the effect, the authors use an unusual yardstick: how much 1947 Eisenhower interstate highway each state was slated to get, as a stand-in for where data centers tend to cluster. And they're clear about the catch: if supply gets tight, the effect can flip, which is the exact fear when too many projects crowd into one area. Worth keeping in mind: the paper hasn't been peer-reviewed yet, and two of its three authors work for EPRI, the utility industry's research arm.

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