AWS Project Green (New Florence) data center, New Florence, Missouri

Two data center campuses are going up side by side along Interstate 70 between New Florence and High Hill, and they have split Montgomery County. Amazon's Project Green sits north of the interstate and Google's Project Spade to the south, together covering about 1,900 acres. Project Spade replaced Hoette Farms and Nursery, which moved to Jonesburg. Both projects were announced in mid-2024. Amazon's administrative review finished in November 2024, the project was presented and approved at a Montgomery County Commission meeting in December 2024, construction permits went in that February and ground was broken on April 1, 2025.

Residents formed a group called Preserve Montgomery County after the announcement and later sued to halt Amazon's project, saying the public notice was insufficient and the consequences were never properly weighed. "When we first heard about (the data center plans), we put a lot of public pressure on the county commissioners," said co-founder Tom Westhoff. "They were not paying attention to us. They basically ignored us." Co-founder Sabrina Cope said the water study "was conducted by Amazon in 2020, before data centers had reached the scale of these projects," and that no study had been done by an independent source. Montgomery County resident Brenda Buechele said: "I feel like we win little battles every day, all day long."

The county commission heard public comment on the Amazon project on Monday, January 12, 2026, with Presiding Commissioner Ryan Poston and commissioners Dave Teeter and Doug Lensing present. Resident Janette Seper told the commission: "I have a lot of personal concern with noise, pollution, water usage, electrical usage, and I'm concerned about the data center coming in." J. Hardin, from High Hill, was more cautious than opposed: "I think it's reasonable to be concerned about anything new that comes in that a community is not used to." Commissioner Teeter said of the delay in answering residents: "We couldn't answer some of the questions until we received accurate information."

Amazon, which plans 17 buildings on the site, said tax revenue could range from $401 million to $1.8 billion over the next 25 years. On water, Amazon says cooling will draw on water about 6 percent of the time, with air cooling the rest, and that the effect on aquifer recharge will be small.

The lawsuit is going ahead. Preserve Montgomery County sued the county and the Missouri Department of Economic Development in February 2026, arguing that neither posted proper public notice of the project or gave enough information about the data centers' water and electricity use, and that residents were not fully told the terms of the tax abatement. On September 18, 2026, Cole County Circuit Judge Cotton Walker refused to dismiss most of the case, ruling that the group has standing, though he dropped the Department of Economic Development as a party. No further hearings had been scheduled, and the county and state say there is no factual evidence for the claims.