Mixed opinions, limited information about $6.6 billion data center in Arkansas River Valley

Karen Fawley first recalls learning of plans to construct a data center near the Johnson Regional Medical Center when a friend mentioned the project in passing two years ago. 

Fawley said she wasn’t following the project closely. Then, in January, she watched the razing of a tree-covered hillside through her mother’s hospital room window.

“It was really a surprise,” Fawley said. “We knew that it was gonna happen, or we at least thought it was gonna happen, but we didn’t know when. And then I just looked out the window and it was just, it was happening.”

That hillside next to the hospital now has a tall crane that dwarfs the surrounding area and the beginnings of what will eventually become a data center. 

The groundwork for the project was laid quietly in 2022, and with the support of local officials — and an initial lack of public pushback — it has progressed steadily through various zoning and city council approvals without much controversy.

The $6.6 billion data center — one of six such projects announced in Arkansas — is being built by Serverfarm, a California-based company with facilities around the world. 

Unlike Little Rock and Pulaski County where residents have been vocally opposed to two planned data centers, opposition appears more muted in Clarksville, and some have expressed optimism online about the benefits the Serverfarm facility could bring. 

But there is also skepticism and frustration from those who say they were blindsided by the project — a common refrain at a time when many small towns across the country are grappling with data centers springing up in their backyards.

Some Clarksville residents hope the center leads to good jobs and more money for schools, roads and law enforcement. Others have questions about environmental impact, utility costs and whether the city is giving away too much to receive too little.

The desire for more information was evident during a community-organized town hall at the University of the Ozarks last Monday. The event occurred immediately after the Clarksville City Council meeting where members tabled resolutions to issue up to $55 billion in industrial development revenue bonds for the Serverfarm data center. 

About a hundred people attended the sometimes tense town hall. Community members submitted more than 80 questions in advance, said Debra Hobbs, one of the event organizers. Hobbs is also a former Republican state legislator who is running as an independent candidate against Republican Rep. Aaron Pilkington to represent House District 45, which includes Clarksville.

Town hall organizers invited Clarksville’s mayor, city council, city engineer and other local officials, including Pilkington, but only two of six city council members attended.

Pilkington told the Advocate he was out of the country, and Clarksville Mayor David Rieder held his own meeting at the same time as the town hall. Rieder did not respond to several interview requests.

In an emailed statement, Serverfarm spokesperson Kurt Widmann said the company is continuing to provide information to city leaders, and looks forward to sharing details of the project’s benefits, including hundreds of permanent jobs and millions in tax revenue, with local residents. Like other Arkansas data centers, Serverfarm has created a website for the project.

“We understand a project of this size generates questions, and we welcome these conversations,” Widmann wrote. “Our goal is to build a campus that benefits Clarksville and its residents while complying with all applicable environmental requirements.”

Economic potential

Clarksville, a town of just under 10,000 in the Arkansas River Valley, is the kind of town that packs the stands for a peewee baseball game and hangs vibrant blue banners that read “Welcome Home” from lightpoles along downtown’s main street. Nestled in between the Boston and Ouachita Mountains, it’s the home of the Johnson County Peach Festival, the University of the Ozarks and a Tyson Foods hatchery.

Though the hatchery has been economically beneficial, the closures of Baldor Electric and HanesBrands manufacturing facilities were a big hit to the region, Pilkington said. 

“Those were two big economic losses, and so while we’ve had some growth as well, we’re teetering on the edge,” he said.

Pilkington, founder of a new group advocating for data center and AI infrastructure investment, said the region needs the jobs and tax revenue he says the completed data center will provide.

The Republican lawmaker has been a proponent for expanded financial incentives for data centers, and sponsored legislation in 2023 that established sales tax exemptions for such projects.

Eddie King, one of two city council members who attended last week’s city hall, said young people are moving away from Clarksville because of a lack of good jobs. King said the town wouldn’t have a main street if it weren’t for Tyson.

“We got plenty of convenience stores and Mexican restaurants and other kind of restaurants, but we don’t have jobs that people can go out and make a retirement on, other than Tyson and Red Wing,” King said.

Many questions, few answers

The project’s benefits remain an open question, in part because a “community benefits package” scheduled to be discussed at last week’s city council meeting was pulled from the agenda.

“A lot of it sounds like we got a lot of promises, but I don’t think I’m the only one that believes big corporations don’t always keep their promises,” Clarksville resident Bryan Connerly told the Advocate.

King and Christel Thompson, the two council members who attended the town hall, said they were unable to answer many of the questions submitted by the community. 

“I was hoping that the mayor and some of these other folks who had the answers would be here tonight,” Thompson said.

Despite the current lack of details, Thompson, a former public school teacher and principal, said she’s hopeful the data center will benefit local public schools. Thompson said a visit to an operational data center in Oklahoma demonstrated how tax revenue supported construction of a facility focused on STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — that benefitted students.

“They were able to partner with universities near there to train those students to go get jobs…because of the property tax they were able to get,” Thompson said.

A town engaged

Efforts to organize people to push back against the data center have run into cynicism, Hobbs said, and what some described as lagging civic engagement with local government. 

She said “people feel powerless,” but the data center project “is challenging people to show up.”

Thompson said the city had not done a good job of “getting out in front of this” and informing the community of what was coming. Pilkington disagreed.

“If people feel like they’re kept in the dark, I don’t necessarily know what they wanted us to do unless they want us to be running TV ads about what the project does,” he said.

No one group was at fault for the community being taken off guard by the data center, Fawley said. The city could have done more to alert residents, Serverfarm could have been better about conducting outreach, and residents could have been more proactive about learning what was happening in local government, she said.

Fawley said it felt like nothing could be done once construction began, but the town hall was a wake-up call.

“I just came away from it saying I need to know more about what’s going on,” she said. “That’s part of the reason why my husband and I have been really trying to get more involved in things, because it’s just what you should do.”