Terra Nexus data center campus (316 Old Cheraw Highway) In review
Terra Nexus Land Fund I, LLC asked Rockingham to rezone ~165 acres at 316 Old Cheraw Highway from high-density residential (R-7) to conditional light industrial for a $1.2B, ~30-job data center campus — Richmond County's third. The Planning Board unanimously recommended approval on Aug 4; a City Council public hearing must precede any vote, but fetched coverage (as of Aug 13) gives no confirmed hearing date.
Key facts
- Filing LLC
- Terra Nexus Land Fund I, LLC
- Size
- 165 ac
- Location
- Rockingham (Richmond County), North Carolina
- Stage today
- In review
Source
read 2026-08-14
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 (7 events)
- 2025-05-13rezoning
Rockingham City Council unanimously approved the voluntary annexation and rezoning of 69.23 acres on Old Cheraw Highway (the Clontz property) from rural residential to high-density residential for a planned housing subdivision by Sage Equity. · source - 2025-08-15filing
Ben and Amber Moss petitioned Rockingham to annex their adjacent 93.305-acre parcel on Old Cheraw Highway, citing interest from an entity planning a residential subdivision. · source - 2025-10-14rezoning
Rockingham City Council approved the annexation and rezoning of the Moss property (93.305 acres on Old Cheraw Highway) from rural residential (R-20) to high-density residential (R-7). · source - 2026-08-04vote
The Rockingham Planning Board reviewed Terra Nexus Land Fund I, LLC's request to rezone ~165 acres at 316 Old Cheraw Highway from high-density residential to conditional light industrial and unanimously recommended that the City Council approve it. · source - 2026-08-09coverage
Richmond County commissioners responded to resident data center concerns; Commissioner Andy Grooms noted the Old Cheraw Highway site falls under Rockingham city jurisdiction and said the county has no authority over it, adding he does not want additional data centers. · source - 2026-08-10coverage
WSOC-TV reported neighbors are split on the proposed third data center for Richmond County at Old Cheraw Highway; NC state Rep. Ben Moss, who once owned the land, called for transparency and public discussion before any decision. · source - 2026-08-13coverage
The Richmond County Daily Journal reported that the Rockingham City Council will schedule a public hearing on the Terra Nexus conditional rezoning request; city council cannot vote until after the hearing is held. · 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 Rockingham (Richmond 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 Rockingham (Richmond 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. This project's locality centres on 34.940, -79.770 — 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
- North Carolina briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in North Carolina
- Southeast Raleigh Data Center — Raleigh, 86 mi Withdrawn
- Project Iron Spur — Rural Hall (Forsyth County), 94 mi Awaiting decision
- Project Delta — Walnut Cove (Stokes County), 96 mi In review
- CoreWeave Marble NC — Marble (Cherokee County), 237 mi In review
- Drox Group Rural Hall — Rural Hall (Forsyth County) Denied
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Terra Nexus data center campus (316 Old Cheraw Highway)”, aigridwatch.com/projects/rockingham-old-cheraw-data-center, 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).