Data centers in Hamilton County, Tennessee: 2 projects mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Hamilton County's argument started in the old county jail. The eight-story, 142,000-square-foot building at 601 Walnut Street in downtown Chattanooga has been empty since 2021, and local developer Jimmy White of Urban Story Ventures wants to lease it from the county for Jailhouse Studios, a film, music and technology complex he pitches as a step toward a larger development called The Bend. Urban Story Ventures said companies including Oracle had expressed interest in the small data center planned inside, about 10 racks with ordinary air conditioning. A petition demanding public input gathered more than a thousand signatures by February, and when the county commission approved the lease in March, it capped data processing and storage at 12,000 square feet unless the owners came back for more.

The larger fight moved to the county's rural land. On June 30, Mayor Weston Wamp proposed a one-year moratorium on new data centers in unincorporated Hamilton County. "I'd rather these data centers not come to Hamilton County," Wamp said. On July 15 the commission approved it, running through July 15, 2027. County Attorney Janie Varnell said Tennessee law does not allow a permanent ban by simple vote. The pause does not reach the jail project, which sits inside Chattanooga's city limits; a Times Free Press guest column called it a moratorium "that only pauses what's convenient."

No specific rural data center proposal in unincorporated Hamilton County has been named publicly. Also operating in Chattanooga is DC Blox's Chattanooga data center. The developer said in January the Jailhouse Studios space could be finished within a year and a half of approval.

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.