Franklin data center plan tabled
Published 1:30 pm Wednesday, January 21, 2026
FRANKLIN — After a two-hour special called meeting Tuesday night featuring pushback from some community members, the Franklin Planning and Zoning Commission tabled a vote on a preliminary development plan for a proposed data center.
The 4-0 vote from the board received applause from many gathered at the Franklin-Simpson High School performing arts center, but little is expected to change regarding the facts on the ground when the board meets again to consider the preliminary development plan, a meeting tentatively scheduled for Feb. 5.
Planning and zoning board member Derrick Kepley made the motion to table the matter, saying he required more time to review the materials submitted by the applicants seeking approval of the preliminary development plan.
The data storage and service center is proposed for 200 acres of land at 421 Steele Road in the southern edge of Franklin near Exit 2 of Interstate 65.
TenKey LandCo I LLC is the listed landowner, and documents submitted with the preliminary plan name OTN Development Company as the developer.
Preliminary concepts outline a large operation consisting of three, 200,000-square-foot buildings that would be developed over a three-year period.
Developers have said that each facility would represent a $1.6-billion investment and, if ultimately approved, the project could employ 100-200 workers and produce an estimated $17.68 million in revenue to support local services.
That ultimate approval would only come after a lengthy application and permitting process, of which Tuesday’s meeting regarding the preliminary development plan represented one of the first steps, well before the authorization of any construction.
“We are enthusiastic about the fact we will have another opportunity to discuss the project on February 5,” attorney Gregory Dutton, representing OTN Development Company, said after Tuesday’s meeting. “We are disappointed there wasn’t an affirmative vote tonight, and we feel very strongly that the best way to answer many of the thoughtful questions asked by the public tonight are to continue to move this process forward. In order to do that, we need an affirmative vote from the commission on our preliminary development plan … this is a very, very early step in an ongoing process of regulatory investigations and approvals which we are very much anxious to continue and move forward with.”
Discussion at Tuesday’s meeting concerned applications from the developer for water, sewer and gas/electric availability at the site of the proposed center, as well as access to the property from Freeman Parkway.
Dutton and other representatives from the developers took questions from the commission members related to those applications.
When it came time for the public to ask questions, several people asked for the developers to delve into specifics of their proposals, and Dutton objected to several questions on the grounds that they were outside the scope of what the planning and zoning commission was to consider with regard to water, sewer and power capacity requests.
“I feel like there was a lot that could have been discussed, but they kept avoiding the questions, so I felt like they were just dismissive when it came to this,” said Franklin resident Jasmine Butt, who posed several questions to the developers Tuesday and has been one of a number of community members who have protested the proposed data center. “I am happy with this being tabled and pushed out … we’re going to continue to keep pushing through, bring light to the community and hopefully have an even bigger roomful next time and keep putting the pressure on.”
Dutton informed commissioners at the meeting that developers have gotten assurances from various local utilities that they have enough capacity to meet the proposed facility’s needs for water usage, sewage treatment and energy to power the facility.
Documents from the city of Franklin indicate that the developer has submitted applications requesting that one structure on the site have the capacity to release up to 1,000 gallons of water a day into the city sewer system and that a second structure have up to 5,625 gallons of availability for sewer service, with the city indicating that it had the capacity in its sewage treatment system to serve the data center.
Applications to the city for water and sewer availability show that the developers envision a maximum of additional 5,800 gallons a day of what is termed industrial process water could be released through the center’s operations.
Attorney Felix Fukui, representing the development company, said Tuesday that those fluids would largely represent water in the center’s closed-loop system used for cooling its computer equipment that would be lost through evaporation or leaking into the ground.
The developer is also seeking water service at a maximum use of 15,650 gallons per day between the two facilities for which it has applied for water connection, and the Simpson County Water District indicated in Nov. 12 letters to the developers that it was able to provide water service to those facilities at that capacity.
Dutton said Tuesday that, by comparison, Walmart in Franklin has a 25,000-gallon daily water capacity guideline.
Warren RECC also communicated in two letters to the developers that it could accommodate capacity demands for power, with OTN Group applying for a power load of up to 100 kilowatts at one facility — termed Project Lionsgate — and for three loads of up to 225 kilowatts each at the second facility — referred to in application documents as Project Blackjack.
Dutton told commission members that the operations of the facility would not require the developers to apply for a pre-treatment discharge permit.
Residents who oppose the data center have raised several concerns, many expressing skepticism that the data center will deliver on its promises of an economic windfall for public services and infrastructure and voicing worries that the facility will place a strain on the local energy grid and that its operations would negatively affect the karst terrain of the region.
Local government officials have put in place a number of steps intended to provide an additional layer of oversight should the data center ultimately gain approval for construction.
The Simpson County Fiscal Court passed an ordinance last month requiring any data center looking to operate in Simpson County to obtain a conditional use permit in order to do so.
Simpson County Judge-Executive Mason Barnes said the court enacted the ordinance in order to put in legal safeguards that protect the county.
Franklin City Commissioner Kelly Bush, who has previously worked in information technology for IBM and Boundary Point, has had misgivings about the whole process.
At a November city commission meeting, Bush moved for the creation of a committee to explore the issue of data centers in Franklin, to be led by the director of the Franklin-Simpson Industrial Authority.
That director, Jim DeCesare, announced his resignation from the position shortly after the city commission approved establishing the committee, which Bush said has not met.
“I believe that going through this we’ve raised more questions than we’ve gotten answers,” Bush said. “There’s so much ambiguity here and I just don’t understand how we’re getting to this point that we don’t have all these questions answered and I think it’s in the best interest of the public to go through and be the ones that trying to move Franklin forward in a direction that we all want to go. I think it was clearly stated tonight that no one wants this to move forward, the citizens desperately want this committee to be formed and it hasn’t been done yet.”
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