California Based Developer Shares Plans for Proposed 430-Acre Data Center in Rock County

Plans to construct a 2-million square foot data center campus on 430 acres in Beloit and Turtle were unveiled to an invitation-only crowd of 60 individuals. This included officials from the City of Beloit as well as Turtle, Rock County, Blackhawk Technical College and various business and union leaders.

Hosted by Visit Beloit, representatives from Panattoni Development, based in California, highlighted the details of the project. This included site plans calling for the construction of two separate buildings, each 1 million-square-feet, that would be built on either side of South Prairie Avenue or South Country Road G.

The project would also include an additional 112,000 square-feet of admin space to house employees. If approved, the data center would cost around $1 billion to construct and be completed in around five years.

According to an article in the Beloit Daily News, Brock Tomlinson, Panattoni’s Senior Vice President of Data Centers, said his trip to Beloit wasn’t “‘to convince you that data centers are the best things in the world’ but instead to ‘de-mystify information.’”

Addressing Concerns About Water Usage 

This included addressing concerns about excessive water usage, which is needed to cool data center computers, as well as the amount of power required to keep them running.

The proposed building site for the data center is currently being used as a rock quarry, which, according to Tomlinson, uses around 100,000 gallons of water a day to wash dirt and clay from the aggregate in addition to cleaning equipment and keeping the dust under control.

In comparison, he said, the data centers would use around 40,000 to 50,000 gallons of water per day. 

Potential Economic Impacts from the Proposed Data Center

The second speaker, Jeremy Aguero of Applied Analytics, talked about the various economic benefits that the project could bring to the county. Namely, tax dollars.

If the project is green-lighted, Aguero’s estimates peg its total taxable assessed value around $6.5 million, twice the value of the 1-million square foot Amazon Fulfillment Center in the Gateway District.

Rock County, Turtle, Turner School District, and Blackhawk Technical College, would all benefit from tax dollars generated from the data center. 

Community Weighs In on Proposed Data Center

The event also drew a fair share of protesters outside, which included residents who live near the proposed site of the data center.

Lower property values and questions about pollution, increased utility bills and the water usage were among their concerns. There was also some skepticism over how much the area and school districts will ultimately benefit if the data center is approved.

“An example of that happened with Clinton Community Schools in 2024. That year, a tax-increment district in Beloit’s Gateway Business Park that included Amazon expired, meaning a significant increase in property taxes paid to Clinton schools by the businesses in the district. The state responded by lowering the district’s state aid from $6.59 million to $5.71 million,” stated the Beloit Daily News.

In addition to Tomlinson, Pattoni also sent seven staffers as well as two people from its media relations firm to attend the luncheon and open house held at the Prairie Intermediate School.

The officials in attendance reiterated that the data center had not yet been approved and that this was simply the beginning of many conversations as to whether or not the project is a good fit for Rock County, its residents, and business owners.