Project dossier · Monticello (Wright County), Minnesota

Monticello Tech data center campus In review

Monticello Tech, led by Frattalone Companies CEO Nick Frattalone, filed a land-use application with the City of Monticello, Minnesota on 2026-07-07 seeking rezoning to a Data Center Planned Unit Development district plus preliminary plat and conditional use permit approvals for a site south of 85th Street NE and east of Highway 25. The application describes 547 acres (364 developable), up to 3 million sq ft, as many as 8 principal buildings, about 75,000 gallons/day of water, and a connection to Xcel Energy's 345 kV system; the developer projects about $7 million in annual property tax at full buildout, with construction possibly starting Q1 2028. The eventual operator is not identified. City staff had until 2026-08-21 to determine whether the application is complete; Minnesota law then allows a 60-day review, extendable to 120 days.

Key facts

Filing LLC: Monticello Tech
Size: 547 ac
Location: Monticello (Wright County), Minnesota
Application filed: 2026-07-07
Stage today: In review

Source
read 2026-08-14

What to do next

Next step: Application filed. Ask the planning office for the hearing date and request formal notice.

Build an action pack for this project →

What has happened so far (14 events)

2025-08-19hearing
The Monticello Planning Commission opened a public hearing on a proposed data center zoning ordinance (DCPUD) at the Mississippi Room of the Monticello Community Center, drawing large crowds. · source
2025-09-02hearing
The Monticello Planning Commission held a continued public hearing on the DCPUD zoning ordinance; the hearing closed without a vote and the ordinance was tabled. · source
2025-11-01environmental
In November 2025, the City of Monticello published the Draft Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR) for a 550-acre industrial area and opened a 30-day public comment period running November 18 through December 18, 2025. · source
2026-01-26vote
The Monticello City Council unanimously adopted the Final AUAR and Mitigation Plan for the 550-acre Monticello Industrial area, covering two development scenarios including a 3-million-square-foot technology campus. · source
2026-02-03vote
The Monticello Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of the DCPUD (Data Center Planned Unit Development) zoning ordinance to the City Council. · source
2026-02-25lawsuit
The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) filed suit in Wright County District Court (Case No. 86-CV-26-1130) against the City of Monticello and Monticello Tech LLC, challenging the adequacy of the AUAR environmental review. · source
2026-03-08protest
Close to 500 Monticello residents gathered at a local park to sign a statutory citizen petition seeking additional environmental review of the proposed Monticello Tech data center project. · source
2026-04-27vote
The Monticello City Council approved the DCPUD zoning ordinance in a 4-1 vote, establishing setback, screening, infrastructure, and environmental standards for data center development; Council Member Charlotte Gabler cast the sole dissenting vote. · source
2026-04-28coverage
MPR News reported on the newly approved Monticello DCPUD ordinance, noting data centers face new restrictions while the ordinance opens the door to building in Monticello. · source
2026-04-30ruling
Wright County District Court Judge Suzanne Bollman issued a scheduling order in the MCEA v. Monticello lawsuit, setting discovery to conclude by October 15, 2026 and a pretrial conference for December 29, 2026. · source
2026-06-29coverage
Monticello Times reported that Monticello Tech was targeting a July application for its proposed data center site, with the city confirming no formal application had yet been submitted and pre-application discussions were ongoing. · source
2026-07-07filing
Monticello Tech submitted its formal data center application to the City of Monticello, Minnesota, ahead of the Planning Commission's tentative Aug. 4 agenda. · source
2026-07-20filing
The City of Monticello issued a nine-page letter deeming Monticello Tech's July 6 land-use applications incomplete, citing inconsistencies in applicant information, missing survey certifications, incomplete project narratives, and absent engineering and environmental documentation. · source
2026-08-03filing
Monticello Tech submitted a revised application with hundreds of pages of engineering plans and technical studies, detailing a 547-acre campus (364 acres developable) with up to 3 million sq ft across eight buildings, air-cooled design using approximately 75,000 gallons of water daily, and an estimated $73.5 million in infrastructure costs funded by the developer. · 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.

Minnesota Pollution Control AgencyThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
What's in My Neighborhood (permits by address)Searchable 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 Monticello (Wright 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 Monticello (Wright 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.
Minnesota Public 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. This project's locality centres on 45.310, -93.790 — 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

Wright County community briefing — Enactedexpires 2027-05-19
Minnesota briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Other tracked projects in Minnesota

Inver Grove Heights Data Center — Inver Grove Heights, 48 mi In review
Meta Rosemount — Rosemount, 54 mi Under construction
Google Hermantown Campus — Hermantown, 127 mi In review

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Monticello Tech data center campus”, aigridwatch.com/projects/monticello-tech-monticello-mn, 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).