After running into multiple roadblocks from city and county government, the company hoping to develop a massive data center in Franklin, Kentucky has now sued the Simpson County Fiscal Court in an effort to clear the way for its project.
TenKey LandCo filed a complaint last week in Simpson Circuit Court seeking to strike down a county ordinance passed in December.
The ordinance, led by Simpson County Judge-Executive Mason Barnes, would require any new data center project in the county to be in an area zoned for heavy industrial use and also receive a conditional use permit, allowing local government to make specific requirements to mitigate potential negative impacts on the community.
These requirements to data centers would also apply to any related “integrated energy system,” as the project developer plans to build its own natural gas turbines on the site to power the project without connecting to the energy grid.
TenKey had already threatened to either pull out of the project or sue if the county government passed an ordinance requiring a conditional use permit, and opted for the latter on Jan. 20.
The complaint argues that Simpson County government cannot make a zoning rule that applies throughout the entire county, as the city commission and planning and zoning commission of Franklin have ultimate authority within the city’s limits.
While TenKey is the developer and owner of the property off I-65 in Franklin, the ultimate end user of the prospective data center there has not yet been revealed to the public, only being referred to as one of the largest tech companies in the world.
The anonymity of the end user is just one aspect of the data center project that has drawn passionate opposition from local residents and elected officials in Franklin and throughout the county.
Public meetings dating back to last fall have been full of locals expressing opposition to the project, citing fears about pollution, traffic and a lack of clear information. Franklin’s city council and planning commission both voted unanimously last year to reject a proposed zoning change sought by the data center developer, in addition to the fiscal court ordinance in December that spurred the lawsuit. The Franklin Planning and Zoning Commission also chose at a meeting last week to table a vote on a preliminary development plan proposed by TenKey for the data center project, with some attendees chanting, "Go away! We don't want you here!”
TenKey has called their data center proposal a "generational opportunity" for the region, saying they will invest $5 billion in the project and expect it to create at least 100 jobs and $17 million of local tax revenue.
Judge-Executive Barnes, one of the major critics of the data center project, told Kentucky Public Radio that he was just informed about the TenKey lawsuit this week, calling it a “very unfortunate” decision by the company.
“We will be reviewing this suit with legal counsel to determine what the next steps are,” Barnes said in an email.
Barnes previously said the developers offered to give him more information about the project and the identity of its end user if he signed a non-disclosure agreement to withhold that from the public, but he refused.
“I think a lot of these (data center companies) are looking for — for a lack of a better way to say it — these little Podunk communities where they think everybody's going to be ignorant or illiterate and just willing to accept everything they say is the gospel,” said Barnes last fall. “And thankfully, that's just not happening.”
Barnes spoke at the city planning commission meeting in Franklin last week, disputing TenKey’s explanation for why the county ordinance doesn’t apply to the city and criticizing conflicting information the company gave about the project’s impact to local water and sewer services.
“I was a little amazed there were so many discrepancies in their permit applications and what they actually said, and then different numbers on different things," Barnes said. "I felt like that was the message given tonight, 'We want you to ignore all of this, but let us do it.'”
Gregory Dutton, an attorney representing TenKey, said in a statement last week after the commission tabled a vote on its preliminary development plan that they were sticking with the project and confident they’ll receive approval when they meet again Feb. 5.
"The preliminary application presented to the Franklin Planning and Zoning Commission tonight was an early step met with thoughtful questions from the community," Dutton said. "The best way to get to those answers is to approve the application and move the project forward into the full development plan process that will take several months to complete and include numerous investigations, studies and assessments to ensure the project meets all applicable local, state and federal requirements.”
Last summer, another large data center was proposed by a different developer for rural farmland in Oldham County, but faced fierce opposition from local residents. Though threatened with litigation by the developer, the Oldham County Fiscal Court passed a moratorium on all data center applications, including one already filed by the developer that spring. Instead of filing a lawsuit, the developer chose to pull out of the project.
A planning commission in Meade County also voted last year to block a prospective data center project, though another developer’s requested project is still pending in Mason County.
Data center projects started surfacing in Kentucky last year after the General Assembly passed major tax incentives to lure the massive computing facilities to the state. Lawmakers have said they plan to address data centers in the new 2026 session, focusing on encouraging more power generation to serve them and maintaining the rights of local governments to either embrace or oppose data center projects in their communities.
