Project dossier · Cave City (Barren County), Kentucky

Cave City data center (Kentucky Industrial Alliance) Awaiting decision

Kentucky Industrial Alliance LLC proposes a data center on a 381-acre project site within its 600+ acres at 2001 Doyle Avenue, about 10 miles from Mammoth Cave National Park; it submitted an application May 11, 2026, and sued the city on June 8 after Cave City adopted a one-year moratorium. The city moved to dismiss on June 29, arguing no actual development plan was ever filed; a July 20 preliminary-injunction hearing was scheduled. Residents fear runoff through the karst into the Mammoth Cave system.

Key facts

Owner: Kentucky Industrial Alliance LLC
Filing LLC: Kentucky Industrial Alliance LLC
Size: 381 ac
Location: Cave City (Barren County), Kentucky
Application filed: 2026-05-11
Hearing: 2026-07-20
Stage today: Awaiting decision

Source
read 2026-08-14

What to do next

Next step: Heard 2026-07-20; decision pending. Call the board clerk for the vote date and get on the notification list.

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What has happened so far (14 events)

2024-09-11rezoning
Cave City Council approved the ordinance annexing approximately 245 acres of the former Branstetter property into the city limits, the land later tied to the proposed data center. · source
2026-04-30hearing
The Joint City-County Planning Commission unanimously approved proposed data center regulations during a public hearing and forwarded them to the Cave City Council. · source
2026-05-11filing
Kentucky Industrial Alliance LLC submitted a development application for a data center on its 600+ acre property at 2001 Doyle Avenue in Cave City. · source
2026-05-18hearing
Cave City held the first of two special meetings regarding data centers. · source
2026-05-20vote
Cave City held a second special meeting and subsequently enacted a 12-month moratorium on data centers. · source
2026-06-08filing
Kentucky Industrial Alliance LLC sued Cave City, the City Council, and the Joint City-County Planning Commission in Barren County Circuit Court, arguing the one-year data center moratorium violates due process. · source
2026-06-09vote
The Cave City Council voted to hire outside legal counsel to defend against Kentucky Industrial Alliance's lawsuit. · source
2026-06-29filing
Cave City's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss, arguing the company never submitted an actual development plan under city ordinances. · source
2026-06-30lawsuit
Kentucky Industrial Alliance filed a second lawsuit in Barren Circuit Court seeking to void Cave City's September 2024 annexation of about 245 acres, alleging the Shaw Cemetery parcel's owner did not consent as required by KRS 81A.412(1). · source
2026-07-01filing
The Joint City-County Planning Commission filed its response in the moratorium suit, stating no development plan accompanied the application and that it would take no further action until the litigation concludes. · source
2026-07-18protest
Cave City residents held a protest against the proposed hyperscale data center near Mammoth Cave National Park. · source
2026-07-18filing
Attorney Thomas Davis filed the Joint City-County Planning Commission's response to the annexation lawsuit, requesting dismissal with prejudice so the commission could decide applications under its rules and applicable state law. · source
2026-07-20hearing
A Barren County Circuit Court hearing was scheduled on Kentucky Industrial Alliance's request for a preliminary injunction to temporarily block enforcement of the moratorium. · source
2026-07-21hearing
A community town hall on the proposed data center was scheduled for July 21 at Austin Tracy Elementary School. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (0 filed · 12 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.

Kentucky Division for Air QualityThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
Search Kentucky Division for Air Quality for this projectsearchThis state publishes no searchable permit database, so a written records request to the agency is the reliable route. Use this search only to find the right office.

County & town filings

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

Search Cave City (Barren County) planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
Search Cave City (Barren County) property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.

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.

MISO (Midwest & Gulf) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
PJM Interconnection (Mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
Kentucky 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 37.140, -85.960 — 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.

Around here

Cave City community briefing — Enactedexpires 2027-05-20
Kentucky briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Other tracked projects in Kentucky

Justified Data Campus — Hawesville (Hancock County), 68 mi In review
Paducah Data Center Campus — Paducah, 146 mi Proposed
Mason County hyperscale data center campus — Mason County, 154 mi Approved
Project Bluegrass (Panattoni) — Mercer County / Burgin In review

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Cave City data center (Kentucky Industrial Alliance)”, aigridwatch.com/projects/cave-city-doyle-avenue-data-center, 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).