Eagle Rock Data Center, Palmer, Illinois

Eagle Rock Partners, a North Carolina company, gave up on August 12, 2026, on its $6 billion Meridian Technology Park, planned for farmland near Palmer in Christian County, Illinois, southwest of Taylorville. The project would have been a 1,000 to 1,100 megawatt data center on 475 acres, built over five to seven years. The company said it had lost its planned electricity supply and had never filed a formal zoning request.

The power was to come from the Lincoln Land Energy Center, a gas plant near Pawnee that was permitted in 2022 but never built, whose entire output Eagle Rock had agreed to buy. County board chairman Bryan Sharp said the company told him a state law requiring gas plants to close or reach zero carbon emissions by 2045 made the plant too hard to finance. "Due to circumstances beyond our control, the delivery of the power infrastructure on which the project depended is no longer certain," Eagle Rock said.

Palmer Mayor Mike McKinney told the county board months earlier that water is the village's biggest source of revenue. "I'm concerned if there's any damage to the water. That could put Palmer in jeopardy, closing doors, because that's our biggest revenue stream," McKinney said. About 400 people, almost all opposed, filled the Taylorville High School cafeteria on June 16 when Eagle Rock partner Ken Loeber made his first formal appearance before the county board.

Resident Maureen Tarrant, who lives just over a mile from the site, said: "I love the place we live. I don't want it changed. It's a fairy tale, and I don't want it turned into a horror story." Sharp said the opposition was not the reason for the withdrawal: "I know they were very aware of it, but I don't think that had an effect on their decision."

Christian County had temporarily restricted data center construction since August 2025, and in late August 2026 the board approved a one-year restriction on both data centers and carbon sequestration while it writes new ordinances. Sharp said he expects more proposals because "Christian County has the infrastructure and a willing seller."