Project dossier · Beaver Dam, Wisconsin

Meta Beaver Dam Under construction

$1B hyperscale data center in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.

Key facts

Operator
Meta
Owner
Meta
Location
Beaver Dam, Wisconsin
Stage today
Under construction

Source

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 (20 events)

  • 2024-11-01incentive
    Beaver Dam city council created a tax incremental financing (TID) district to help fund infrastructure development for what was then an unnamed data center project. · source
  • 2025-02-01announcement
    Beaver Dam Area Development Corp. and the city publicly disclosed they were working with an unnamed company on a potential data center project, and the city council voted to approve it ahead of Meta being named. · source
  • 2025-11-12announcement
    Meta, Governor Tony Evers, and state/local officials announced a $1 billion, 700,000+ sq ft AI-optimized data center campus on roughly 500 acres in Beaver Dam Commerce Park — Meta first Wisconsin facility, expected online in 2027. · source
  • 2025-11-12financing
    Meta said it will underwrite nearly $200 million in energy infrastructure investment (substations, transmission lines, network upgrades) coordinated with Alliant Energy. · source
  • 2025-11-12construction
    Meta officially broke ground on the $1 billion AI-driven data center campus in Beaver Dam; the facility will use dry-cooling technology intended to eliminate operational cooling water demand. · source
  • 2025-11-12report
    Meta published details on its 30th global data center, citing community benefits commitments and a wetlands restoration effort tied to the Beaver Dam project. · source
  • 2025-11-12protest
    Residents at groundbreaking-related coverage raised questions about the project transparency, following revelations that the deal had been developed via shell companies and nondisclosure agreements. · source
  • 2025-11-12coverage
    WEDC estimated the project would generate up to 1,000 skilled-trade construction jobs at peak and more than 100 permanent jobs, alongside eligibility for a sales tax exemption on construction materials. · source
  • 2025-12-09lawsuit
    Midwest Environmental Advocates sued the Wisconsin Public Service Commission after it denied a public-records request for unredacted electrical load projections tied to Meta Beaver Dam data center. · source
  • 2025-12-11coverage
    Local news reported on the Midwest Environmental Advocates lawsuit against the PSC over secrecy surrounding the Beaver Dam data center projected energy demand. · source
  • 2026-01-01coverage
    Investigative reporting found at least four Wisconsin communities, including Beaver Dam, had signed nondisclosure/secrecy agreements during negotiations for billion-dollar data center projects. · source
  • 2026-02-04announcement
    Oppidan Investment Co. proposed a second, smaller ~90,000 sq ft edge data center on a 13+ acre city-owned lot near Meta campus — a separate project not affiliated with Meta. · source
  • 2026-03-11public-comment
    Community members organized a volunteer town hall in Beaver Dam to discuss impacts of Meta AI data center on the local community. · source
  • 2026-04-01environmental
    Sierra Club released analyses finding overwhelming public opposition to Wisconsin data centers statewide, citing Beaver Dam-area concerns among the evidence. · source
  • 2026-04-01vote
    Beaver Dam Common Council approved a resolution authorizing a development and sale agreement for the second (Oppidan) data center, expanded TID 7 boundaries, and rezoned the parcel from residential to light industrial. · source
  • 2026-04-01environmental
    A Beaver Dam resident living near the Meta construction site reported the creek running through her property had gone dry, surged unpredictably, turned milky, and tested positive for heavy metals. · source
  • 2026-04-01protest
    At a Beaver Dam city council meeting, at least 14 residents spoke in opposition citing environmental impacts, lack of transparent public input, and wildlife/water concerns. · source
  • 2026-05-07ruling
    Wisconsin PSC approved Alliant Energy rate contract for Meta Beaver Dam data center (~220 MW demand) but sharply criticized the secretive black-box negotiation process involving NDAs, redacted filings, and corporate pseudonyms, ordering Alliant to develop a standard rate structure for future large-load customers. · source
  • 2026-05-08coverage
    Coverage noted that in the PSC proceeding, 93% of verbal public comments and 85% of written comments argued data centers should pay 100% of their own costs rather than shifting costs to ratepayers. · source
  • 2026-05-08ruling
    RENEW Wisconsin reported the PSC modified and approved the Alliant-Meta data center contract, requiring additional reporting, a cost-of-service study, and an incremental cost analysis going forward. · 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.

  • Search Beaver Dam 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 Beaver Dam 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.

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

Other tracked projects in Wisconsin

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Meta Beaver Dam”, aigridwatch.com/projects/meta-beaver-dam-wi, 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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