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Data centers in Christian County, Illinois: 1 project mapped
Christian County's proposed 1,000-megawatt data center died for want of a power plant. Eagle Rock Partners, a Charlotte, North Carolina, developer, had proposed the Meridian Technology Park on 475 acres of farmland along Illinois Route 48 in rural Bear Creek Township, southwest of Taylorville: a campus of $6 billion to $8.8 billion, with construction no earlier than 2028, the Illinois Times reported. On Aug. 12, 2026, Eagle Rock said it was abandoning the project because "the delivery of the power infrastructure on which the project depended is no longer certain."
The power was to come from the Lincoln Land Energy Center, a gas-fired plant near Pawnee in Sangamon County that received an Illinois EPA construction permit in 2022 but was never built. County Board President Bryan Sharp said Eagle Rock founder Ken Loeber told him the state's 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which requires gas plants to close or reach zero carbon emissions by 2045, would leave the plant too short a life to attract financing. Sharp said Loeber did not cite local opposition, though about 400 people, most of them opposed, had packed a June 16 County Board meeting. "I want independent studies that prove what they're saying," said Wendy Dulakis, who lives about a mile from the site. Eagle Rock never filed a zoning request, and the board never voted.
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Eagle Rock had promised 500 permanent jobs and closed-loop cooling, and said grid upgrades would be paid for by the developer, not ratepayers; asked whether the load would push up regional electricity rates, it did not answer directly. The same developer won a disputed rezoning for a data center in Twiggs County, Georgia, in 2025. Nearby, CyrusOne is building a $500 million, 630-megawatt campus in Sangamon County, and in Logan County a one-year moratorium passed in May 2026 was declared invalid in June by the county's state's attorney, after which Hut 8's applications for a $5 billion project near Latham were tabled over technical defects, Illinois Times reported. Gov. JB Pritzker has said he will use executive authority to suspend state tax breaks for new data centers while their effect on electric rates is studied.
The county is still reworking its zoning rules. "Christian County has the infrastructure and a willing seller," Sharp said, predicting more proposals because of the county's access to high-capacity transmission lines, and describing both relief and a continuing need for development in an aging, shrinking county.
Data center projects on record in Christian County
Grouped by the town each site sits in. The report above may name projects that have no record here yet.
Palmer1
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eagle Rock Data CenterPalmer | Eagle Rock Partners | Cancelled | 1,000 MW |
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Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.