Data center preliminary development plan gets approval from Franklin Planning/Zoning
Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, March 4, 2026
The Franklin Planning and Zoning Commission discusses the preliminary development plan for a proposed data center from TenKey LandCo I LLC during a meeting Tuesday at the Franklin Police Department community room. (Photo by JUSTIN STORY/The Daily News)
FRANKLIN — After tabling the matter twice previously, the Franklin Planning and Zoning Commission approved a preliminary development plan for a proposed data center, reaching a 4-0 decision near the end of a raucous, nearly four-hour meeting Tuesday night at the Franklin Police Department community room.
As in previous meetings concerning the data center proposal, several community members crowded into a room to register their disapproval of the project, situated on about 200 acres of land on Steele Road in the far south end of Franklin zoned for heavy industry and owned by TenKey LandCo I LLC.
While a meeting in January — where the issue was tabled for the first time — included a public comment period, subsequent meetings last month and on Tuesday covering the issue were devoted solely to TenKey officials answering questions from planning and zoning members about their preliminary development plan.
Complaints have centered on worries about whether the data center’s operations would strain the local energy grid and affect utility rates, skepticism about the professed potential economic benefits of the center and a general opposition to what’s seen as a lack of information about the plan presented by developers.
Audience members Tuesday who were disruptive were ruled out of order and then told to leave after a second outburst, and about a dozen people were ordered to leave the meeting over the course of the night.
Approving a preliminary development plan does not guarantee the start of construction at the site, but does represent an acknowledgement from the planning and zoning board that TenKey has met the legal standard in its early application paperwork concerning the data center’s proposed capacity needs for water and other various utilities.
TenKey officials have received assurances from Franklin’s public works department, the Simpson County Water District and Warren RECC that the utility companies have the ability to supply the center’s operations with water, sewer and gas/electric at amounts up to the capacity envisioned by TenKey for daily use.
“We’re certainly very appreciative of the commission’s time, effort and diligence, they’ve spent a lot of time over several months considering our proposal, considering our application, they’ve been thoughtful and I think it’s clear tonight that they recognize the value the project brings to the community,” attorney Gregory Dutton, representing TenKey, said after the meeting.
The massive project is estimated to be a $1.6 billion investment to be developed over a three-year period, with TenKey representatives saying that 100-200 jobs are estimated to be created by the project and projected revenues of $17.68 million to support local infrastructure and services.
With approval for the preliminary development plan obtained, TenKey officials said they can embark on what they said would be a thorough process to prepare its final development plan, which would be presented to the planning and zoning board at some future date.
“Before the final review we’ll have to do some geotechnical evaluations, stormwater evaluations, there will be a number of environmental permits that will have to be secured, there will be a number of studies about the design, the topography, it’s a lot of work,” Dutton said. “There are a variety of reports, studies and investigations that need to happen.”
The ultimate unanimous vote came after some tense moments among the board members and an abortive vote to deny the preliminary development plan.
Board members Derrick Kepley and John Mayeur asked a number of questions of Dutton and lead developer Adam DeSimone regarding TenKey’s application, with many of Kepley’s questions focusing on the gas turbines that would be built on the site to provide the energy required for the data center to function.
Mayeur had questions about the tools the planning and zoning board would have at its disposal to regulate the project should the preliminary development plan gain approval, expressing qualms about the process that brought the application before the board while conceding that the preliminary development plan met the legal standard for approval based on advice from planning and zoning board attorney Robert Link and planning and zoning director Carter Munday.
An initial motion from board chair Debbie Thornton to approve the plan did not come to a vote for a lack of a second from a board member.
Later, a vote to deny the plan resulted in a 2-2 deadlock, with Thornton and Mayeur voting against the motion to deny brought by Kepley and seconded by board member Justin Henninger.
Board member George Weisseinger was absent, with planning and zoning officials saying that his wife was in the hospital with an illness.
Finally, the preliminary development plan earned approval after Dutton and TenKey officials agreed to conditions that included monthly meetings with planning staff to provide updates on the project, with summaries of those meetings provided to planning and zoning board members and available to the public, caps on water usage at the site, articulated stormwater drainage plans and assurances that the developers would not try to sell electricity generated at the center back to Warren RECC, the result of negotiations carried out at Tuesday’s meeting that effectively ended the deadlock.
That approval came after several minutes in which the matter sat in front of the board without members taking any action or otherwise commenting on it, which led Link to urge the board to break the stalemate.
“Sitting there doing nothing is not going to work,” Link said. “The board is not doing its job if it doesn’t move one way or another.”
Kepley at one point moved to table the matter, but Link said that option was not available to them, a move that was questioned after the meeting by Simpson County Judge-Executive Mason Barnes, who was in attendance.
“There is nothing to keep a voting governmental or quasi-governmental body from tabling an issue multiple times,” Barnes said.
Simpson County Fiscal Court, led by Barnes, is the defendant in a lawsuit filed in Simpson Circuit Court by TenKey that challenges an ordinance fiscal court recently passed requiring technology data storage centers and integrated energy system facilities to obtain a conditional use permit in order to operate anywhere within Simpson County.
TenKey maintains that the fiscal court, as a county government agency, lacks the authority to control a project located on property within the city of Franklin.
The fiscal court, represented in this lawsuit by attorney Aaron Smith, has moved to stay all proceedings in the suit to allow the Simpson County Planning and Zoning Commission to consider an amendment to county zoning regulations that would include data centers as conditional uses in areas within the county with a Heavy Industrial zoning designation.
A hearing has been set for March 16 to consider the motion.
