Childersburg Industrial Park Data Center, Childersburg, Alabama

A developer identified only as WHP is studying the Childersburg Industrial Park, a former World War II munitions and Manhattan Project site on the Coosa River in Talladega County, Alabama, for a $6 billion, 500-megawatt data center. Council members say they have been in talks with the group for 14 months, but as of July 2026 no deal had been signed and no offer to buy the property had been made. "There is no data center," Councilman Tommy Ivey said.

Mayor Ken Wesson said the city has signed a purchase service agreement with the developer for 486 acres in the park, worth about $17 million, and that the project would use a glycol-based cooling system and could bring around 220 permanent jobs. He called it "an agreement in principle," pending the developer's own site assessment. The developer's representative, Joshua Harrelson, would not confirm a company name; Inside Climate News reported WHP may be Western Hospitality Partners.

That company withdrew a $6 billion, 600-megawatt data center called Project Lincoln in Oldham County, Kentucky, in June 2026 after local opposition, and later filed for a smaller version nearby. In January 2026 Childersburg's council added a line to the park's zoning naming data centers a permitted use; Wesson said the site was already zoned for industrial use and a data center "would have been permitted anyway" without the change.

The site's history worries residents. It was placed on the EPA's national priorities list for cleanup in 1987, and a 2023 Army Corps of Engineers report warned that without further work, "industrial workers may be exposed to contaminants" there. Hundreds have joined a Facebook group opposing the project, and resident Noah Beckham said people "just want them to listen and be transparent with us about the process."

Any sale would need an ordinance passed by the Childersburg City Council, Wesson said: "the city has not sold any property to anybody as of yet, that would take an ordinance." The developer's feasibility and environmental studies were still under way as of the council's July 7, 2026 meeting.