The preliminary landscape plan for a proposed data center project in Mason County.
Courtesy of the City of Maysville Zoning Office
A rezoning application has officially been submitted for a proposed hyperscale data center project.
On Thursday, March 12, the City of Maysville updated its online data center information page, releasing the application submitted for the proposal to rezone approximately 28 agricultural parcels in Mason County for industrial use.
This application comes on the heels of several months of ongoing discussion about data centers in the county, including a recent ordinance adopted by the Mason County Fiscal Court that places regulations on data centers.
According to a preliminary landscape plan included in the application, the proposed site will be located near Big Pond Pike, Germantown Road and Valley Pike Road. The site features six data center buildings, six mechanical yards, six client load substations, three utility load substations, an admin and warehouse building, six water tanks, screening and storm ponds.
The total area is approximately 2,080 acres, with the project reportedly involving the disturbance of approximately 1,350 acres. It will be located roughly 1.2 miles from the boundary line of the City of Maysville.
The listed justification for the zoning map amendment request states, “The proposed project is designed to be harmonious with the surrounding environment and complies with the Comprehensive Plan. As the physical embodiment of the Cloud, the proposed project represents an opportunity for Mason County to meet modern computing demands while securing long-term economic stability for the Mason County community.”
Described as a “campus” in the application’s community impact analysis, the project will reportedly “be used solely to support the project’s own suite of products, platforms and digital infrastructure needs.”
It is anticipated that there will be roughly 300 badge-in workers, 100 of which will be full-time employees. Commencement of construction is planned for the summer of 2027, according to the community impact analysis.
The topic of the proposed project’s water supply has frequently been discussed by community members with concerns about water consumption. According to the community impact analysis, the project will design a “closed-loop” liquid-cooled system “that recirculates the same fluid and will consume zero water for cooling during normal operations.”
“Water will be sourced from the Western Mason Water District and the City of Maysville,” it continued.
Other topics in the submitted rezoning application included an environmental impact assessment and noise modeling results.
Next week, a print edition of The Ledger Independent will analyze the points made in the application ahead of two scheduled public hearings on March 25 and 26.
