Data centers in Cass County, Michigan: 1 project mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Cass County's data center is already built, and its neighbors say they can hear it. Hyperscale Data's facility, run by its subsidiary Alliance Cloud Services, opened at the Business Center of Southwest Michigan in Dowagiac in 2022 as a digital asset mining site. It sits across the street from homes. "It's almost like having a vacuum cleaner running all the time," said Mitchell Gourley. Ami File, who has lived opposite it for 17 years, said: "Once it started we're like, 'Oh my gosh we have to listen to this for how long?' Well four years later and it's still there." Neighbors told WWMT sound levels in front of the site reach 60 to 70 decibels. Some have sued the company, alleging it "emitted and continues to emit, unreasonable and excessive noise onto Plaintiffs' property," and blaming its cooling fans and the lack of barriers. John Valdes said that when city officials came to listen, their answer was that he "should buy some headphones."

The company wants to grow. It announced in 2025 that it intended to expand the site from 30 to 340 megawatts, and in March 2026 an agreement to buy about 48.5 more acres for cloud computing. City Manager Kevin Anderson said the city learned of it from the press release. The company does not use the city's electric utility, and no development proposal had been filed. Dowagiac amended its noise ordinance in March 2026 with separate day and night limits for businesses near homes, and began looking at its zoning, sewer and water rules. Mayor Patrick Bakeman called the company's expansion announcements "vague" and said it had "neither applied for nor received any approvals necessary to facilitate" them.

In January 2026 the Cass County Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a resolution urging its municipalities to adopt a clear regulatory framework. It calls for public disclosure of how a data center's electricity will meet clean energy goals, its daily water use, and a plan so residents are not left with the bill if a project fails. "We're not against data centers and we're not pro-data centers," said Commission Chair Jeremiah Jones. "We just want transparency and what's best for the community." He said the county has "zero power" over the Dowagiac project, and that it is the only data center development he knew of. Penn Township, one of the county's 15 townships, went further, extending its own data center moratorium to a full year on May 21, 2026 after residents said even that did not include the zoning rules they wanted. Residents have since been organizing to get the rest of Cass County's townships to coordinate their zoning and demand developer investment in roads and emergency services before any new proposal arrives.

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.