OpenAI Stargate Wisconsin Under construction
Part of Stargate.
Key facts
- Operator
- Oracle
- Owner
- Oracle
- Tenant
- OpenAI
- Location
- Port Washington, Wisconsin
- Stage today
- Under construction
Source
read 2026-08-14
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.
What has happened so far (16 events)
- 2025-01-21rezoning
Port Washington's Common Council took up annexing and rezoning roughly one-third of the 1,900-acre project site from the Town of Port Washington for a data center then tied to Houston developer Cloverleaf, with town board and council meetings held that day on about 2,000 acres (~17% of the town). · source - 2025-06-11announcement
Vantage Data Centers was identified as the operator for Port Washington's proposed data center campus, described as a 3.5-gigawatt project with a 1.3-gigawatt first phase targeted for 2027. · source - 2025-07-18filing
A Vantage official expressed concern in an email about the Wisconsin DNR's position that a full Environmental Impact Statement would be required for the Port Washington data center, according to records later cited in litigation. · source - 2025-08-20vote
The Port Washington Common Council unanimously approved a development agreement with Vantage Data Centers for an $8 billion, four-building data center campus and approved annexing nearly 700 more acres, bringing the total annexed to 1,315 of the 1,900-acre site. · source - 2025-09-23filing
A Vantage official texted the Port Washington mayor about the governor's office questioning why an Environmental Impact Statement would 'kill the project,' according to records cited in the Sierra Club/MEA lawsuit. · source - 2025-10-22announcement
OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage Data Centers announced the 'Lighthouse' Stargate data center campus in Port Washington: a $15 billion investment for four data centers on 672 acres delivering close to a gigawatt of AI capacity, with a minimum $175 million in regional infrastructure upgrades and completion scheduled for 2028. · source - 2025-12-01protest
Three members of the opposition group Great Lakes Neighbors United were arrested at a Port Washington city council meeting in December 2025, according to later reporting. · source - 2025-12-18construction
Vantage held a groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of construction on the $15 billion Lighthouse data center campus in Port Washington, with the first phase to be completed in 2028. · source - 2026-01-29lawsuit
The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) sued the City of Port Washington seeking an injunction to block an April referendum that would require voter approval for TID-financed projects exceeding $10 million. · source - 2026-02-13lawsuit
Great Lakes Neighbors United's lawsuit challenging the city's tax incremental district was reported, contending the TID provides property tax reimbursement and interest payments to the developer totaling more than $458 million over 18 years; the city moved to dismiss. · source - 2026-02-16withdrawal
A recall petition against Port Washington Mayor Ted Neitzke, organized by Great Lakes Neighbors United, was submitted by the February 16 deadline but the city's initial review found it fell several hundred signatures short of the roughly 1,600-1,800 required. · source - 2026-02-24ruling
A court denied MMAC's request to halt the Port Washington tax-incentive referendum, allowing the April ballot measure to proceed. · source - 2026-03-15protest
Port Washington neighbors pushed back on 24-hour weekday construction at Vantage's Lighthouse campus, submitting a 100-person petition to restore original hours and citing round-the-clock work lights and backup beeping, with the Planning Commission set to take up the issue. · source - 2026-04-08vote
Port Washington voters passed a referendum with 66% approval requiring voter approval before the city grants tax incentives exceeding $10 million to developers; organizers said the measure does not affect the current Vantage deal but restricts future data center tax breaks. · source - 2026-06-12permit
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources issued permits for the Vantage Port Washington data center project without preparing a full Environmental Impact Statement. · source - 2026-07-10lawsuit
Midwest Environmental Advocates, on behalf of Sierra Club Wisconsin, sued the Wisconsin DNR in Ozaukee County Circuit Court, alleging the agency violated the Wisconsin Environmental Policy Act by issuing permits for the data center without a full Environmental Impact Statement. · source
Find the paper trail
Find the paper trail (1 filed · 12 places to look)
Permits already on file (1)
Filings we have a source for — the record, not a place to look for one.
- 2026-06-12
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources issued permits for the Vantage Port Washington data center project without preparing a full Environmental Impact Statement. · source
State environmental permits
Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.
- Wisconsin DNR — Air ManagementThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
- Search Wisconsin DNR — Air Management 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.
- Common Council agendas & packetsThe meeting packet carries the staff report, site plan and conditions — verified page for this locality.
- Search Port Washington 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 Port Washington 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.
- Public Service Commission of Wisconsin — 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 43.390, -87.870 — 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.
Recent news
7 stories tracked since 2026-07-10 across 5 outlets. 3× A community is pushing back on a nearby data center. 2× The dispute has escalated into litigation. Most recent: “Judge dismisses lawsuit challenging Port Washington data center TID” (WPR, 2026-09-22).
- Judge dismisses lawsuit challenging Port Washington data center TID
- Residents deserve answers on Port Washington data center | Letters
- At Port Washington Forum, Data Center Developers Face Skeptical Neighbors
- ‘Community Conversation’ held on massive $15B data center campus in Port Washington
- Data center dust and noise fight continues near Port Washington
- Residents demand transparency on Port Washington's $15B AI data center's water and environmental impact
- Groups sue Wisconsin DNR over environmental review of Port Washington data centers
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 7 headlines archived.
Around here
- Wisconsin briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Wisconsin
- Project Nova (Microsoft Caledonia) — Caledonia (Racine County), 41 mi Withdrawn
- Microsoft Fairwater Wisconsin — Mount Pleasant, 46 mi
- Meta Beaver Dam — Beaver Dam Under construction
- QTS Dane County — Dane County In review
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “OpenAI Stargate Wisconsin”, aigridwatch.com/projects/openai-stargate-wisconsin, 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).