Hearing held in Simpson data center lawsuit
Published 8:21 am Tuesday, March 17, 2026
FRANKLIN — While preliminary development plans for a proposed data center have gotten approval, legal challenges related to the project have come before a judge for the first time.
A status conference took place Monday in Simpson Circuit Court regarding a lawsuit brought by TenKey LandCo I LLC, the company that owns the land in Franklin where the proposed data center would be built.
TenKey’s project visualizes three large facilities built on about 200 acres on Steele Road, dedicated to cloud-based data storage and infrastructure to cool the computers necessary for such an operation.
The Franklin Planning and Zoning Commission recently approved a preliminary development plan, but the lawsuit concerns an ordinance passed late last year by Simpson County Fiscal Court that would require any data center operation within the county to obtain a conditional use permit.
TenKey has sued the fiscal court, essentially arguing that the county government has overstepped its authority in attempting to regulate a project that would be located within Franklin’s city limits and be subject to the city’s planning and zoning regulations.
Attorney Kathryn Eckert is part of a group of TenKey representatives who have requested that Simpson Circuit Judge Mark Thurmond issue a judgment invalidating the fiscal court’s ordinance.
In response, fiscal court has contended that TenKey has not suffered an injury to its legal interests traceable to the county government’s actions.
Attorney Aaron Smith, representing the fiscal court, argued Monday for all proceedings in the lawsuit to be placed on hold while the Simpson County Planning and Zoning Commission considers amending its land use regulations so that advanced technology centers and integrated energy systems would be considered conditional uses for land zoned for heavy industry.
Should the county planning and zoning board’s text amendment receive approval both there and by the fiscal court, the ordinance previously passed by the fiscal court would be moot, Smith said.
Questioned by Thurmond, Smith said that process of amending the county’s planning and zoning regulations would likely be complete by the end of May.
Eckert said that staying the proceedings would result in a financial hardship for TenKey as it continues the research and permitting process ahead of the presentation of a final development plan.
Eckert also filed a motion to disqualify Smith and attorney Josie Keusch, both from the Bowling Green law firm English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley, from representing the fiscal court in the lawsuit.
According to court filings, TenKey retained a different ELPO attorney, Michael Vitale, in November, to write a cease-and-desist letter to a Franklin resident who posted defamatory statements online concerning TenKey and data center project manager Adam DeSimone.
The resident removed those statements.
With ELPO attorneys retained now to represent the fiscal court, Eckert argued that represents a conflict of interest, with TenKey representatives having already shared confidential information about the project with Vitale to help him draft the cease-and-desist letter.
Smith countered that TenKey retained ELPO last year just for the letter, and had performed no other services for the company and had no communication with them since November.
Smith also argued that the cease-and-desist letter and the current lawsuit involving the legality of the fiscal court’s ordinance are “substantially different” issues and ELPO had received no confidential information from TenKey.
“It’s not the same level of dispute, not the same transaction,” Smith said.
Thurmond set a March 27 deadline for Eckert to reply to Smith’s response regarding the motion to disqualify the ELPO attorneys and declined to rule Monday on the motion to stay the proceedings, saying he would research the issue thoroughly.
Another status conference has been set for April 13.
