Project dossier · West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana

Hut 8 / Google West Feliciana Parish Under construction

$10B, 1,000 MW data center campus in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana.

Key facts

Operator: Hut 8
Owner: Hut 8
Tenant: Google
Size: 1,000 MW
Location: West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
Stage today: Under construction

What to do next

Next step: Under construction — pull the approved conditions and permits and hold the builder to them; an expansion or a new building reopens the record.

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What has happened so far (18 events)

2023-10-09announcement
West Feliciana Parish President Kenny Havard teased a major economic development announcement at a parish council meeting, later revealed to be tied to the data center project land assembly. · source
2023-10-23coverage
West Feliciana Parish sold 107 acres of surplus land near the old paper mill to M/V Industrial LLC for $500,000 ($4,672/acre) — later at the center of a land-deal controversy tied to the data center site assembly. · source
2023-11-01announcement
Havard announced the parish had sold the 107-acre industrial park site for $500,000 for what he described as a project that would be a major economic boost. · source
2025-01-06rezoning
West Feliciana Parish officials unanimously approved rezoning/development of the AI data center; Phase 1 includes two 450,000-sq-ft buildings. Officials flagged traffic-safety concerns and Hut 8 said closed-loop cooling would avoid heavy water consumption. · source
2025-01-13vote
Parish council approved the $2.5 billion Hut 8 data center project with an aggressive timeline to build. · source
2025-02-27coverage
M/V Industrial LLC finalized purchase of additional nearby parcels for millions of dollars, then the same day resold those properties to Hut 8 for the data center site — a transaction central to later corruption allegations. · source
2025-03-27coverage
WBRZ investigative report: Port Commission members alleged Parish President Havard and Port Commission President Grezaffi improperly profited from the 2023 land sale (M/V Industrial LLC tied to Grezaffi Cedar Management Company), claiming the parish was defrauded of roughly $11.5 million. Ethics complaint filed the next day. · source
2025-04-14vote
West Feliciana Parish Council voted 3-2 to pass a resolution supporting a state bill to dissolve the West Feliciana Port Commission, amid the land-deal dispute. · source
2025-08-18construction
Hut 8 broke ground on the $2.5 billion (Phase I) River Bend data center on a 611-acre parcel off LA 964; first building targeted for completion by end of 2025, second before end of 2026. · source
2025-12-17financing
Hut 8 signed a 15-year, $7.0 billion lease (up to $17.7B with renewals) with Fluidstack for 245 MW at River Bend, with Google (Alphabet) providing two financial backstops. Anthropic is the ultimate compute user via Fluidstack. · source
2025-12-17announcement
Hut 8, Anthropic, and Fluidstack jointly announced a multi-gigawatt AI infrastructure partnership (245 MW up to 2,295 MW); Louisiana Economic Development announced Hut 8 selection of the site for a $10 billion Phase I investment scalable to 1,000+ MW, backed by Entergy Louisiana (330 MW initial). · source
2025-12-18incentive
Hut 8 River Bend projected to generate $90 million annually for West Feliciana Parish (versus $41M current tax revenue) under a 30-year PILOT agreement with the parish Industrial Development Board. · source
2026-04-16filing
State legislation (HB466) introduced that would let West Feliciana Industrial Development Board rebate property taxes to residents/businesses from the anticipated data center revenue windfall. · source
2026-05-07coverage
Parish officials outlined plans to replace West Feliciana 1948 jail (39-bed expanding to ~150) using data-center PILOT revenue; first prepayment anticipated around July 2026, full annual payments (~$90M/yr for 15 years) expected once project completes late 2027. · source
2026-05-19utility
Hut 8 committed $16 million to expand West Feliciana water infrastructure (new well, ~8 miles of water main) to be transferred to the parish at no taxpayer cost, serving 4,000+ households. · source
2026-06-01construction
Jacobs began formal EPCM work on the $10 billion River Bend campus, partnering with Vertiv on critical infrastructure; financed up to 85% via project-level debt from J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. · source
2026-06-01financing
West Feliciana Parish Council and Industrial Development Board approved a cooperative endeavor agreement accepting a $10 million advance on Hut 8 future PILOT payments, split $5.3M to school board, $3.9M to parish government, and $800,000 to sheriff office. · source
2026-07-14coverage
Hut 8 held a hiring event and community open house at West Feliciana Parish High School for River Bend jobs. · 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.

Louisiana DEQThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
LDEQ Electronic Document Management SystemSearchable public filings — search the operator, the shell LLC on the deed, and the address.

County & town filings

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

Search West Feliciana Parish 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 West Feliciana Parish 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.
Louisiana 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.
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

Louisiana briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Other tracked projects in Louisiana

AWS Caddo Parish — Caddo Parish In review
Meta Hyperion — Richland Parish Approved

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Hut 8 / Google West Feliciana Parish”, aigridwatch.com/projects/hut8-google-west-feliciana-la, 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).