Project dossier · Mercer County / Burgin, Kentucky

Project Bluegrass (Panattoni) In review

Developer sought annexation into City of Burgin to escape Mercer County's one-year data center moratorium; residents cited environmental and utility-rate concerns.

Key facts

Operator: Panattoni Data Centers
Location: Mercer County / Burgin, Kentucky
Stage today: In review

Source

What to do next

Next step: An application is in the record. Ask the planning office for the next hearing date and request formal notice.

Build an action pack for this project →

What has happened so far (13 events)

2025-03-27incentive
Kentucky enacted HB 775, expanding sales-and-use tax exemptions for qualified data centers statewide (effective July 1, 2025). · source
2026-02-18public-comment
Over 200 residents attended a Mercer County Joint Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, an early public airing of concerns about Project Bluegrass impact on farmland, wellbeing, and resource consumption. · source
2026-07-09vote
Burgin City Council voted 3-2 to advance a first reading of an ordinance to annex more than 1,000 acres of farmland, roughly doubling the city size, to enable Panattoni proposed hyperscale data center to bypass Mercer County zoning. · source
2026-07-16vote
Mercer County Fiscal Court voted to begin drafting an ordinance establishing a moratorium on new data center construction in the county. · source
2026-07-20withdrawal
Burgin canceled a scheduled special city council meeting on the annexation ordinance amid mounting public opposition and objections from neighboring Harrodsburg over water-supply capacity. · source
2026-07-24public-comment
Mercer County Joint Planning and Zoning Commission held a roughly two-hour public comment session on a proposed 17-page county data-center ordinance that would cap data-center zoning at 1,500 acres countywide. · source
2026-07-30hearing
Mercer County Fiscal Court gave first reading to the data-center moratorium ordinance; a related follow-up public meeting was held at Campbellsville University Harrodsburg Athletic Center. · source
2026-08-06ruling
Governor Andy Beshear signed Executive Order 2026-494, requiring data-center developers statewide to submit energy plans protecting ratepayers, pay their full share of taxes, and directing state agencies to deny permits causing negative environmental impacts. · source
2026-08-12moratorium
Mercer County Fiscal Court unanimously passed a one-year moratorium on new data-center applications in unincorporated parts of the county — a moratorium that would not apply if the project site is annexed into Burgin. · source
2026-08-13public-comment
Burgin City Council held its first public-comment session on the data center; 14 residents spoke against the project (an overflow room was needed) and the council deferred the annexation vote. · source
2026-08-13report
Reporting described Project Bluegrass as a proposed four-building, 900-acre data center campus up to 1,300 MW, with the developer claiming 1,500+ construction jobs, 100 permanent jobs, and $25-30 million in projected annual tax revenue for local schools. · source
2026-08-17coverage
Statewide public-radio reporting placed the Burgin/Mercer County fight in the context of more than a dozen Kentucky data-center proposals since the 2025 tax-incentive law, alongside moratoriums in Oldham County and Louisville Metro. · source
2026-08-18coverage
Kentucky Lantern analyzed whether Beshear data-center executive order has legal teeth absent enabling state legislation, in the context of the Burgin/Mercer County fight. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (0 filed · 12 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.

Search Mercer County / Burgin 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 Mercer County / Burgin 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.
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) Awaiting decision
Justified Data Campus — Hawesville (Hancock County) In review
Mason County hyperscale data center campus — Mason County Approved
Paducah Data Center Campus — Paducah Proposed

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Project Bluegrass (Panattoni)”, aigridwatch.com/projects/panattoni-burgin-ky, 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).