Mason County hyperscale data center campus Approved
The Mason County Fiscal Court gave final approval on May 22, 2026 to rezone 28 properties (2,080 acres, A-2 agricultural to I-3 industrial) outside Maysville for a hyperscale data center campus; the application's development plan shows six data center buildings, three utility substations, and 15 detention ponds on ~1,975 net acres. The developer's identity remains undisclosed, and a legal challenge by residents group We Are Mason County was pending at approval.
Key facts
- Size
- 2,080 ac
- Location
- Mason County, Kentucky
- Hearing
- 2026-03-25
- Decided
- 2026-05-22
- 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.
What has happened so far (2 events)
- 2026-03-25hearing
The joint planning commission scheduled public hearings for March 25-26 at Maysville Community and Technical College on the zoning map amendment to take 2,080 acres from A-2 agricultural to I-3 industrial for a six-building hyperscale data center campus with three substations. · source - 2026-05-22vote
The Mason County Fiscal Court gave final approval to rezone the 28 properties outside Maysville for data center construction; the company behind the project remains undisclosed and a We Are Mason County lawsuit over the process was pending. · source
Find the paper trail
Find the paper trail (0 filed · 13 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.
- Fiscal Court agendas & packetsThe meeting packet carries the staff report, site plan and conditions — verified page for this locality.
- Search Mason 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 Mason 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 38.600, -83.820 — 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
- Kentucky briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Kentucky
- Cave City data center (Kentucky Industrial Alliance) — Cave City (Barren County), 154 mi Awaiting decision
- Justified Data Campus — Hawesville (Hancock County), 166 mi In review
- Paducah Data Center Campus — Paducah, 281 mi Proposed
- Project Bluegrass (Panattoni) — Mercer County / Burgin In review
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Mason County hyperscale data center campus”, aigridwatch.com/projects/mason-county-hyperscale-campus, 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).