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Logan County Board
New data center near Latham
[November 04, 2025]
On Monday, November 3rd, the Zoning
and Economic Development Committee of the larger Logan County Board
held their monthly meeting in the Blue Room of the Logan County
Safety Complex. Three of the five Committee members were present,
giving them the minimum number needed for a quorum. Present was
Committee Chairman Michael DeRoss, Vice Committee Chairman Kathy
Schmidt, and Joseph Kuhlman. Hannah Fitzpatrick and Bob Sanders were
not present. Also present was Zoning and Economic Development
Officer Al Green and Board member Kevin Knauer.
The second item on the agenda under new business was a new data
center that is looking to be built near Latham. For a full rundown
on the rest of the meeting,
click here.
Green largely led the discussion on the matter of the new data
center, as he has been in contact with the company seeking to have
it approved. Green shared that he met with the company, which is
from Kansas City, last week. The data center they are proposing is
“huge.” According to Green, the current plan has the facility at
about 200 acres, with another 50 acres possibly being added to it.
He also stated that the company itself is very large, having just
built a $13.5 billion data center in Louisiana. He stated that the
purpose of the data center would be bit coin mining.
Green also stated that this project
would require a lot of water to keep the computer systems cool.
Fortunately, the company has no intention of pulling water from the
Mahomet Aquifer. Rather, they are going to be bringing in their own
water from outside the county, with their system being a closed
loop, meaning they will not need to constantly pump new water in.
According to Green, they plan on replacing the water every few years
or so.
Knauer asked about the exact location, but Green did not have an
answer for him at the time. He did say that they were looking to get
started building in the next few months, with them wanting to have
the facility open by the third quarter in 2026. Green suggested that
it might be built near the substation in the area, as the data
center will require a lot of power.
Green continued, informing the Committee that, according to the
company, the facility should employ somewhere between 100 and 300
people. They also called the jobs “blue collar IT jobs,” not
requiring workers to obtain large amounts of IT education to get
their foot in the door. He also stated that the site would be closer
to Decatur than Lincoln and wanted to see what could be done about
getting them to hire as many Lincoln applicants as possible.
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He talked to the
company about partnering with Heartland Community College’s
Lincoln location to provide training to kids fresh out of high
school looking to start a career. He said they were talking
about having kids that went through the training sign a contract
to agree to work at the data center for a certain amount of time
after the completion of their training.
As a part of their permit, Green said
they are going to have to disclose how many parking spots they are
going to build. This, Green said, will help them keep the company
honest. He said that the number of parking spots they are looking to
create should inform them of approximately how many employees they
are actually planning on having, giving evidence to the county if
the company happens to be lying about the number of people they plan
on hiring.
DeRoss asked what the data center will look like to someone driving
by. Green stated that it would likely be just a bunch of metal
buildings. He also stated that the permit fees the county will
receive will all be based on commercial construction. This, as
stated in a previous meeting, means that the permit fee will be a
percentage of what the entire projected cost for building the
project will be.
Seeing as there will be no battery storage of any kind at the
facility, Green stated that he does not really see many downsides to
this project, reiterating the potential benefits to Logan County
youth looking to start a career right out of high school. There was
nothing to vote on now, as Green stated he was just reporting the
project to the Committee.
After the discussion on the data center ended, DeRoss moved the
Committee on to their next agenda item.
[Matt Boutcher]
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