Provident Data Center/Gateway Digital Campus, Villa Ridge, Missouri

The Franklin County Commission voted on Sept. 15, 2026, to approve rezoning for Provident Data Centers' Gateway Digital Campus near Villa Ridge, Missouri, by the Shaw Nature Reserve off Interstate 44, along with a second data center project south of Pacific. Provident's proposal rezones about 575 acres of agricultural land at Diamond Farms on Robertsville Road for the data center development.

The county planning and zoning commission first took up both projects on March 17 in a meeting at Union High School that ran nearly 11 hours, with about 174 speakers, the vast majority opposed, before adjourning at 4:39 a.m. without a vote. "I really love my sleep but I love my community more. And that's why I'm still here at 4 a.m.," Elisabeth Bennett said. On April 21 the commission voted 5-4 to recommend rezoning Diamond Farms and 5-4 against the Crooked Creek site near Pacific.

"We did not intend to move to an industrial complex, a hyper-scale data center," said Max Baxa, who represents residents of Desloge Estates near the Diamond Farms site. Before the final vote, Dana Bowers of Pacific, whose parents live next to the Villa Ridge project, said: "I want them to just say no." She objected that the latest county rules measure the 1,000-foot setback from an inhabited home rather than a property line.

The county's new data center rules add noise standards, construction hours and a development agreement with fines of $20,000 a day and a $10 million escrow, and opponents near the Pacific site say they are weighing legal steps to slow or stop the projects.