Project dossier · Iron County (near Cedar City), Utah

Antelope Data Campus (Project Antelope) Approved

Iron County Planning Commission unanimously approved a conditional use permit on 2026-06-04 for Pronghorn Development LLC's five-building campus (up to 6.75M sq ft, with an on-site natural gas plant of up to 1.5 GW) on 640 acres along Antelope Springs Road, about 8 miles west of Cedar City, with 62 conditions covering water rights, wastewater, noise, lighting and site restoration. The application was vested before a county moratorium on new data center applications adopted the month prior; additional permits are still required before construction. Buildout is proposed in phases over 8-10 years.

Key facts

Filing LLC
Pronghorn Development LLC
Size
640 ac
Location
Iron County (near Cedar City), Utah
Hearing
2026-06-04
Decided
2026-06-04
Stage today
Approved

Source
read 2026-08-14

What to do next

Next step: Approved — pivot from stopping it to a binding CBA: enforceable caps on noise, water and cost, plus a community benefit.

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What has happened so far (17 events)

  • 2025-03-01rezoning
    Iron County Planning Commission held a public hearing in March 2025 on proposed Ordinance 2025-4, which would add Chapter 17.37 to the county land use code and amend the Table of Uses and Definitions to create provisions for permitting data centers. · source
  • 2025-04-03hearing
    Iron County Planning Commission held a public hearing on April 3, 2025 at Festival Hall in Parowan to receive public comment on proposed data center zoning amendments (Ordinance 2025-4). · source
  • 2025-11-01filing
    Pronghorn Development LLC submitted a conditional use permit application in November 2025 for the 640-acre Antelope Data Campus, months after the county amended its zoning ordinance to allow data centers. · source
  • 2026-02-20public-comment
    Iron County posted a public notice for a conditional use permit for a data center and data center power plant on 640 acres, scheduling a Planning Commission informational session for March 5 at Festival Hall in Cedar City (no action to be taken). · source
  • 2026-03-04coverage
    SUU News reported growing resident concerns ahead of the March 5 hearing, citing drought fears, potential utility price increases, and loss of farmland from the proposed 640-acre data center. · source
  • 2026-03-05hearing
    Approximately 350 residents packed Festival Hall in Cedar City for a Planning Commission hearing on the Antelope Data Center; over three hours of public comment were heard, with only one of more than 15 speakers expressing support, and concerns focused on water, air quality, noise, and wildlife. · source
  • 2026-04-02coverage
    KUTV reported the Antelope Data Center could bring 670 direct jobs and reduce Iron County property tax rates by approximately 55%; Commissioner Mike Bleak said he shifted from skepticism to support after touring existing facilities. · source
  • 2026-04-06coverage
    Baxtel reported plans had emerged for the 640-acre Antelope Data Center with five buildings totaling 1.35 million sq ft and an on-site 1.5 GW natural gas power plant; no formal action or public hearing occurred at a late-March Planning Commission meeting. · source
  • 2026-05-27moratorium
    Iron County Commission adopted a 180-day moratorium (Ordinance 2026-13) on new data center, power plant, and solar plant applications to review zoning regulations; the existing Pronghorn application was exempted because it had already been deemed complete. · source
  • 2026-06-03coverage
    KJZZ reported the Antelope Data Center faced an uncertain path ahead of the June 4 Planning Commission vote; the commission could approve, deny, modify conditions, or continue the item, and Commissioner Bleak noted the project could still be several years from breaking ground. · source
  • 2026-06-04vote
    Iron County Planning Commission unanimously approved a conditional use permit for the Antelope Data Campus with 62 conditions; the application was vested under existing ordinance ahead of the county's data center moratorium. · source
  • 2026-06-05coverage
    Utah Public Radio reported the Iron County Planning Commission unanimously approved the data center's conditional permit one week after the county paused all new applications; construction is planned over 8 to 10 years, and a 480-page impact report is publicly available. · source
  • 2026-06-06coverage
    The Salt Lake Tribune reported the Iron County Planning Commission approved the conditional use permit for the Antelope Data Center, which would include a 1.5-gigawatt natural gas power plant approximately 15 miles northwest of Cedar City. · source
  • 2026-06-07coverage
    KSL reported the unanimous approval of the Antelope Data Campus CUP for up to five buildings on 640 acres with phased construction over 8-10 years; Pronghorn Development stated the permit 'validates the trust we've built with our neighbors.' · source
  • 2026-06-08coverage
    Iron County Today reported the approval followed months of debate and a packed March public hearing; conditions included dozens of protections, and Planning Commission Chair Erick Cox said they did their 'very best to protect the people in Iron County.' · source
  • 2026-06-10announcement
    Pronghorn Development issued a press release via Utah Policy announcing it secured the conditional use permit for the 1.5 GW Antelope Data Campus, projecting thousands of construction jobs, hundreds of permanent positions, and billions in economic impact. · source
  • 2026-06-10coverage
    Spectrum & Daily News (SUNews) reported the approval cleared a major hurdle but noted additional permits and regulatory approvals are still required before construction can begin; Governor Cox's Executive Order 2026-03 was signed days before the June 4 vote. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)

State environmental permits

Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.

County & town filings

The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.

Utility & grid records

The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.

  • No organised market covers this statenoteThere is no public queue to read. The record is the utility's integrated resource plan and its filings at the PUC — plus FERC eLibrary for anything federally docketed.
  • Utah Public Service Commission — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
  • FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
  • Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.

Federal databases

Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.

  • EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 37.680, -113.060 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
  • EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
  • EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.

These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.

Recent news

Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 2 headlines archived.

Around here

Other tracked projects in Utah

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Antelope Data Campus (Project Antelope)”, aigridwatch.com/projects/antelope-data-campus-iron-county-ut, retrieved 2026-10-11.

As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing

A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.

Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).

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