Data centers in Stokes County, North Carolina: 1 project mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Stokes County has now approved the same data center twice. Project Delta, proposed by Charlotte-based Engineered Land Solutions (ELS) on land owned by Triad developer David Couch's DFC Stokes companies, would put a campus of up to 5 million square feet on about 1,000 of nearly 1,845 acres of farmland off Highway 311 near Walnut Cove, close to Duke Energy's coal-fired Belews Creek Power Station. On January 12, 2026, county commissioners voted 3-2 to rezone the land to heavy manufacturing and add data centers as a permitted use countywide, despite a planning board recommendation against it and nearly 30 public speakers opposed.

In March, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the Southern Environmental Law Center sued on behalf of residents, arguing the hearings had not been properly noticed. The commissioners then voided both decisions, saying they had made "our own errors in the process," and rejected calls for a moratorium. ELS filed a new rezoning application in July, and on September 14 the board again voted 3-2 to approve it after more than three hours of comment; residents who spoke immediately before the vote were uniformly opposed.

ELS chief executive Drew Nations has estimated $20 million a year in property tax at half buildout and $40 million at full buildout, and says the campus will use closed-loop cooling and draw no water from the Dan River. The end user has not been named, and the power demand, reported only as several hundred megawatts, has not been confirmed by the developer. Nations has said construction could begin within 18 months of the September approval and take three to five years.

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.