Company drops Greenleaf AI data center proposal

GREENLEAF, Wis. (WBAY) - There’s a sense of relief in the village of Greenleaf, where the village board says potential plans to build an AI data center there will not move forward.

The decision comes after a meeting Monday night where many people expressed their concerns and said they didn’t want the data center in southern Brown County.

Action 2 News’ Drew Best spoke with several people Monday night who raised the possibility of Cloverleaf Infrastructure withdrawing their plan.

Action 2 News received confirmation from Village Board President Bonnie Crossman. Her message reads:

“First I want to thank the people of the Village of Greenleaf for their passion for our community. I also want to thank so many people from all around the area that shared all the information to help us fight this project. With all that being said, I talked with Travis Armstead from Cloverleaf earlier this evening. He informed me that the Village of Greenleaf was now off the table for their data center project. The people of the Village can now relax and just be assured; your Village board is always working for the very best for the community we love.”

Wisconsin is currently home to 47 data centers across the state, but Greenleaf won’t be one. The mere discussion of an AI data center raised concerns throughout the community.

Several dozen people attended a public discussion earlier Monday night, hoping to learn more about the potential impact a data center project could have.

Greenleaf residents said they were worried about what a data center would cost, how much water it would use, and how much its construction would impact the roads and the village as a whole.

“The magnitude of the building and the money that they’d spend sounds like it’s so much larger than what our community is right now. They’d probably be able to rule our little village, just based on their size,” Dave Vandevoort said.

“I would be living, looking at this enormous monstrosity, and my property values will go down, and it will take away from the community, but also the main reason I moved here almost 30 years ago,” Julie Carter said. “I moved here because it’s in the country, I moved here because I wanted to have the creek along my property, I wanted to have the woodline.”

“One thing that we’ve learned is that getting the community involved, and that community pushback speaks volumes,” Jayne Black, from nearby De Pere, said. “I don’t think that Greenleaf is a fit, and the overwhelming response from the people and community that live here, in the Facebook group that has thousands of people in it, they don’t want it. We don’t have the laws in place in Wisconsin. We’re not ready for this,”

Data centers have become a controversial topic in our state, and state lawmakers are considering regulations for the companies that build them, but it’s an issue the community of Greenleaf is glad it doesn’t have to deal with now.