DeForest announces it won’t move forward with controversial $12B data center

The Madison suburb of DeForest, where a $12 billion data center proposal has been in development for months, abruptly announced Jan. 27 that the data center “is not feasible.”

The statement by the village government indicates the proposal will be dropped.

The announcement came a day after Wisconsin Watch reported on secrecy on the part of local governments regarding seven major data centers around Wisconsin. 

In DeForest, village staff worked for at least seven months with Virginia-based QTS Data Centers before the proposal was publicly announced in October. On Nov. 18, the village president said at a public board meeting that members had only known about the project for weeks.

A key issue was the village would have had to annex 1,600 acres in the neighboring town of Vienna.

QTS was expected to make a presentation Jan. 27 to a village board committee, ahead of consideration by the village board on Feb. 3 and a public hearing on Feb. 9. 

Instead, the village issued a statement Tuesday, saying: 

“After individual discussions with the Village Board trustees, village staff have determined that QTS’ data center proposal is not feasible in DeForest. Village staff have recommended to the village president to reject the annexation petition during the Feb. 3 Village Board meeting.”

Dan Jansen, a DeForest resident who opposes the data center, told Wisconsin Watch that the months of preparation appeared to give the proposal momentum, but that he believes it never had enough support on the seven-member village board.

Village President Jane Cahill Wolfgram, who had expressed frustration with residents’ opposition to the data center, told Wisconsin Watch on Jan. 28: “We have looked at the project as much as we can right now and decided it’s not the direction we should go.”