Project dossier · Catawba County, North Carolina

Microsoft Catawba County Under construction

$1B multi-site data center investment in Catawba County, North Carolina. Under construction.

Key facts

Operator: Microsoft
Owner: Microsoft
Location: Catawba County, North Carolina
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 (11 events)

2022-11-09announcement
Catawba County, the Cities of Conover and Hickory, the Town of Maiden, and the Catawba County EDC jointly announced Microsoft plan to invest a minimum of $1 billion in four data centers over 10 years, creating at least 50 jobs. · source
2022-11-10incentive
Coverage detailed the incentive package: performance-based tax breaks of 50% real property tax and 85% personal property tax over 10 years, across roughly 670 acres in Conover, Hickory, and Maiden. · source
2024-03-01construction
Microsoft broke ground on the Lyle Creek campus (Project Agate) in Conover on NC Highway 16, planned for up to five data center buildings. · source
2024-04-01construction
Site construction began on the Maiden-area data center (Boyd Farms site, Project Yoga), with Morgan Construction Company starting clearing and grading work. · source
2024-04-15construction
Microsoft paused construction across its Catawba County data center campuses; the halt lasted roughly 10 months, with the company not publicly detailing the reason. · source
2026-01-01construction
Satellite monitoring detected re-mobilization activity at Microsoft Lyle Creek, Boyd Farm, and Stover North campuses in Catawba County in January-February 2026. · source
2026-03-01incentive
Microsoft sent a letter to the City of Hickory stating it intends to forgo the tax rebates promised in the 2022 incentive agreement, opting to pay full property taxes under its Community-First Infrastructure initiative. · source
2026-03-02construction
Microsoft resumed construction on its $1B Catawba County project after a roughly 10-month pause; building permits secured for sites in Conover, Hickory, Maiden, and Newton valued at $909 million, with completion obligations extending to 2032. · source
2026-06-23coverage
Catawba County, the Cities of Conover and Hickory, the Town of Maiden, and the EDC issued a joint statement defending the Microsoft project amid rising community questions, citing Microsoft tax commitment and projected water use of about 1% of Hickory daily capacity. · source
2026-06-24protest
Residents near the Conover construction site reported ongoing noise and dust; neighboring landowners voiced opposition to the loss of rural land even as county officials touted job creation and minimal water impact. · source
2026-07-07environmental
Microsoft reported its Catawba County data centers will use far less water than originally estimated, citing a 75-80% cut in projected peak water demand and 85-90% cut in wastewater demand since 2022, attributing this to closed-loop liquid cooling. · 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.

North Carolina DEQ — Division of Air QualityThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
Search North Carolina DEQ — Division of 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 Catawba 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 Catawba 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.

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.
North Carolina Utilities 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

North Carolina briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Other tracked projects in North Carolina

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Microsoft Person County — Person County In review
Project Delta — Walnut Cove (Stokes County) In review
Project Iron Spur — Rural Hall (Forsyth County) Awaiting decision

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Microsoft Catawba County”, aigridwatch.com/projects/microsoft-catawba-county-nc, 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).