Project Spero In review
$3B facility seeking 450 MW (Phase 1 up to 100 MW) at Tyger River Industrial Park-North. Residents filed lawsuit demanding public planning review (Jul 8); SC PSC held oral arguments Aug 5 over whether project needs state-level review — largest PSC turnout since 2018.
Key facts
- Operator
- TigerDC / NorthMark Strategies
- Owner
- Valara Holdings
- Size
- 450 MW
- Location
- Spartanburg County, South Carolina
- First proposed
- 2026-01-27
- Stage today
- In review
Source
read 2026-08-19
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.
What has happened so far (3 events)
- 2026-01-27announcement
TigerDC / NorthMark Strategies / Valara Holdings announced $3B, 450 MW data center at Tyger River Industrial Park-North. · source - 2026-07-08filing
Residents filed lawsuit demanding public planning review of the project. · source - 2026-08-05hearing
SC Public Service Commission held oral arguments over whether the project needs state-level review; largest PSC hearing turnout since 2018. · 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.
- South Carolina DES — Bureau of Air QualityThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
- Search South Carolina DES — Bureau 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.
- County Council agendas & packetsThe meeting packet carries the staff report, site plan and conditions — verified page for this locality.
- Search Spartanburg 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 Spartanburg 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.
- No organised market covers this statenoteThere is no public queue to read. The record is the utility's integrated resource plan and its filings at the PUC — plus FERC eLibrary for anything federally docketed.
- Public Service Commission of South Carolina — 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 34.950, -81.930 — 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
36 stories tracked since 2026-06-16 across 11 outlets. 15× A community is pushing back on a nearby data center. 15× Local officials are moving to pause or block the project. Most recent: “Spartanburg County officials visit Virginia’s ‘Data Center Alley.’ Here’s what they learned.” (Post and Courier, 2026-10-09).
- Spartanburg County officials visit Virginia’s ‘Data Center Alley.’ Here’s what they learned.
- Judge tosses lawsuit against data center and Spartanburg County over land development rules
- Judge dismisses lawsuit over Spartanburg County data center
- Judge dismisses lawsuit challenging $2.8B Valara data center in Spartanburg County
- Data center emissions dispute prompts Virginia trip by Spartanburg officials
- Spartanburg County joins other South Carolina counties in data center moratoriums
- Spartanburg County Council passes data center moratorium with several amendments
- Spartanburg Co. Council approves data center moratorium
- Spartanburg County Council passes data center moratorium with several amendments
- Spartanburg County Council passes data center moratorium with several amendments
- Spartanburg County Council passes data center moratorium with several amendments
- Spartanburg County Council passes data center moratorium
+24 more on the story tracker.
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 36 headlines archived.
Around here
- Spartanburg County community briefing — Enactedexpires 2027-06-22
- South Carolina briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in South Carolina
- Meta Aiken — Trenton (Aiken County), 84 mi Under construction
- Google Berkeley County — Berkeley County Under construction
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Project Spero”, aigridwatch.com/projects/project-spero-spartanburg-sc, 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).