The Data Centre That Was Never Built

The renderings showed nine buildings, a landscaped entrance and an employment figure the county commission repeated at three public meetings. What exists on the parcel today is a graded gravel pad, a chain-link perimeter and a substation that has never carried load.

Bitcoin Bounty Hunter obtained the abatement agreement, the developer's capital plan as filed, and eighteen months of correspondence between the county and the project's holding company. Together they describe a project whose financing was contingent on a power contract that was never signed.

What the county gave up

The agreement waived the majority of property tax liability for ten years and committed the county to road improvements it has already completed. Clawback provisions exist but are triggered by employment shortfalls measured from a commercial operation date that, because the facility never opened, has not begun.

We wrote the penalty around a starting gun that never fired. That is the whole problem in one sentence.

The developer said in a written statement that the project remains under active evaluation and that market conditions delayed construction. Two commissioners who voted for the abatement declined to be interviewed. A third said she would vote the same way again, and that the alternative was an empty field with no substation on it.