The same developer, in other places
Lowndes County is not the first community to be asked this question. The developer has a published model and a record in several states. That record does not predict what happens here, but it does tell you what to ask.
How the business works
This is not an accusation. It is the company's own description of what it does, and understanding it answers a question that comes up at every meeting: why nobody will say who the tenant is.
Cloverleaf co-founder Brian Janous previously led energy strategy at Microsoft before starting the company.1
Cloverleaf describes itself as a developer of clean-powered, ready-to-build sites. It acquires the parcels and puts the package together before an operator is named.2
Power is the scarce input, not land. The company is pursuing 10 to 15 gigawatts of peak capacity across all of its sites, which makes any single county one node in a much larger pipeline.3
The finished site is sold to a hyperscale operator. This is why the company at the county meeting is usually not the company that ends up running the building, and why the tenant question stays open.24
The record, at a glance
Every tile is a place where this developer's model has been proposed, sold, or is still pending, with the outcome on the public record as of late July 2026.3 advanced. One is undecided, and it is the one you live in.
Where communities declined
The company has written its own standard for this: it "will not work in communities where this type of development is unwelcome"16. Here is what that looked like when it was tested.
In January 2026 Cloverleaf’s Chief Development Officer stated: "After speaking to leadership at the Village of Greenleaf and the Town of Wrightstown, Cloverleaf will not be pursuing datacenters in those jurisdictions."
This matters more than any argument we could make. It is the company demonstrating, in its own words, that a community position can end a project.5
Cloverleaf dropped its initial plans for a Michigan data center in October 2025 after the Dundee council voted to block the water supply. The company acknowledged it "should have done more public communication and listening."
The lever was an ordinary local utility decision, taken by an ordinary local body.9
Cloverleaf revealed concept sites in January 2026. Within a month, city officials rejected the company’s preferred site after resident opposition, and hundreds packed a public information meeting at Triad High School.
The council then approved a six-month moratorium, 6 to 0. By June, officials said the rewritten ordinance would cap data centers at 30 megawatts, a ceiling no hyperscale campus fits under. No withdrawal was ever announced. None was needed.1711
After Cloverleaf approached landowners in Mishicot, Two Rivers, and Two Creeks townships with purchase offers, the Manitowoc County Board voted unanimously on April 29, 2026 to impose an 18-month moratorium on data-center siting. The company’s Chief Development Officer responded publicly to the vote.
No rezoning was ever filed. The board acted on the approach itself.6
Cloverleaf proposed a roughly 200-acre campus on a former golf course beside I-75, reported in November 2025 and carried under the code name Project Cherry Blossom. The first informational meeting drew a large crowd, much of it opposed on water, energy, and noise grounds.
On April 21, 2026 the township board voted 6 to 0 for a six-month moratorium while it rewrites its zoning ordinance. The vote is recorded in the township’s own minutes.181910
Cloverleaf’s Greenleaf withdrawal named the leadership it had spoken to, and public records later showed village staff next door in contact with the company that same January, months before residents were told. By May, Wrightstown was holding listening sessions, and its board put an advisory referendum on the August 11, 2026 ballot that names no project and no company.
Residents did not wait for the ballot. After a petition gathered more than 300 signatures, trustees unanimously adopted a one-year moratorium in early July 2026. On this record a withdrawal is a pause. What a community does with the pause is up to the community.20217
Where the model completed
In May 2025 Cloverleaf assembled and annexed 1,900 acres in Port Washington, then handed the package to Vantage Data Centers for an $8 billion campus.
This is the clearest documented example of the cycle completing: the developer who appeared locally was not the operator who arrived. It is the single best reason to ask, before any vote, who the end user is and what the executed agreement says.82
The wider record
The Rumble Technology Campus is the model running to plan: rezoned in November 2024, expanded by 328 acres in September 2025, and developed through an affiliate named Rum Creek DevCo LLC rather than under the company’s own name. On the expansion vote, one commissioner voted no and another recused.
That November, Monroe County’s commissioners unanimously declined to sign a nondisclosure agreement with Google over the project, after their county attorney advised it would conflict with Georgia’s open-records law. A county can say yes to a project and still say no to secrecy.231524
Two more places show a mixed record. In Canadian County, Oklahoma, the Piedmont Planning Commission voted on June 1, 2026 to table Cloverleaf’s roughly 633-acre rezoning and refer it to the city council for further study. In Columbia County, Georgia, the Board of Commissioners approved Cloverleaf’s roughly 417-acre "Pumpkin Center" rezoning 4-1 on February 4, 2026, but only after imposing real conditions: buffers extended from 250 to 500 feet, berms raised from 6 to 12 feet and planted with evergreens, a 60-decibel cap at the property line, and a ban on residential development east of Highway 221. The same day, on the same agenda, that board denied a different developer’s unrelated 944-acre rezoning specifically because no end user had been identified.131425
That last fact is worth sitting with regardless of which company was involved: a lack of a named tenant has been grounds for an outright denial elsewhere. Lowndes County has that same open question.
For how each of these communities found out what was being proposed, seeThe Secrecy. For the body doing the recruiting here, seeThe LCEDC.
Vantage explores data center development on Cloverleaf site in Port Washington, Wisconsin, DataCenterDynamics (2025-06-11). Company background — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-07-28Project Red Clay / company description, Cloverleaf Infrastructure (2026-07-10). Developer website, corroborated by Yellowhammer News — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-07-27Investors embrace Cloverleaf’s energy-first approach to data centers, Latitude Media (2026-01-01). Company pipeline — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-07-27Wilson Sonsini Advises Cloverleaf on $300 Million Capital Raise, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (2024-07-01). Transaction announcement — view source
Accessed 2026-07-27Data center withdraws plans to build in Brown County following community pushback, Spectrum News 1 (2026-01-13). Bilyeu verbatim statement — view source
Accessed 2026-08-12Manitowoc County Board votes unanimously to impose 18-month moratorium on data centers, WTAQ (2026-04-29). County board vote — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Wrightstown places moratorium on data centers, WFRV Local 5 (2026-07-07). Moratorium adoption — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Port Washington approves $8 billion Vantage Data Centers project, BizTimes (2025-05-01). Project approval — view source
Accessed 2026-07-27Cloverleaf drops initial plans for Michigan data center; council votes to block water supply, DataCenterDynamics (2025-10-01). Company statement — view source
Accessed 2026-07-27Frenchtown Charter Township Board Workshop Meeting Minutes, April 21, 2026, Frenchtown Charter Township (2026-04-21). Zoning Ordinance Amendment 300-19 — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Troy City Council approves six-month moratorium on data processing centers, The Troy Times Tribune (2026-03-18). Council vote coverage — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-07-28Metro East data center talks raise questions about residents, economic development, The Alestle, SIUE (2026-03-04). Company and city statements — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Piedmont planning commission tables data center decisions, calls for deeper study, KFOR (2026-06-02). Planning commission vote — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Columbia County Board of Commissioners approve two out of three data center projects, Byrd Farm voted down, The Augusta Press (2026-02-04). Board of Commissioners vote — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28County approves rezoning of 328 acres on Rumble Road for tech campus expansion, WGXA (2025-09-09). Rezoning vote coverage — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Cloverleaf vs. Other Developments (Draft), email released under Michigan FOIA, Village of Dundee / Dundee Township, Michigan (2025-09-23). Email to Dundee officials, cc Aaron Bilyeu
Accessed 2026-07-27Hundreds pack Troy data center meeting held by developer, as residents push back on controversial project, First Alert 4, KMOV St. Louis (2026-02-11). Public meeting coverage — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Cloverleaf targets 200-acre data center development in Michigan, DataCenterDynamics (2025-11-19). Proposal coverage — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28How many AI data centers are planned in Michigan? We counted., Gander Newsroom (2026-03-02). Data center census, updated 2026-07-23 — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Wrightstown works with Cloverleaf on possible data center, NBC 26 (Green Bay) (2026-05-01). Email records — view source
Accessed 2026-07-27Referendum on data centers to be held in Wrightstown, Wisconsin, DataCenterDynamics (2026-06-05). Referendum confirmation — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Cloverleaf reveals plans for 1,000-acre data center campus in Port Washington, Wisconsin, DataCenterDynamics (2025-01-09). Entity named from council agendas — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Cloverleaf seeks to expand Rumble Technology Campus in Georgia, DataCenterDynamics (2025-07-29). Expansion proposal coverage — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Monroe County commissioners vote no on NDA with Google on Rumble Road data center, WGXA (2025-11-18). NDA vote coverage — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Records Request for Documents related to Project Red Clay Data Center, Southern Environmental Law Center and Natural Resources Defense Council (2026-07-27). Request scope: confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements — view source
Not disclosed by the projectAccessed 2026-07-12Last updated