For about two years the company behind a large data center plan in Mason County, Kentucky, was covered by non-disclosure agreements. On 13 October the Mason County Fiscal Court approved a development and community revenue agreement with Chrisham LLC, and the buyer turned out to be a Meta subsidiary. It is purchasing roughly 2,900 acres near Maysville for a campus described as 2.2 GW, WVXU reports.
How the County Describes the Deal
County Judge-Executive Owen McNeill put the initial investment at US$15 billion; the county's attorney, Jim Parsons, said Meta expects to spend about US$10 billion per phase, and WCPO reports that McNeill spoke of five development phases. The agreement promises at least 400 permanent jobs and around 2,000 construction and trades jobs. Data Center Digest, citing DCD, reports plans for up to six buildings of 718,740 sq ft each and three substations.
Most attention went to a 40-year industrial revenue bond figure of US$800 billion. Parsons called it misleading: it is not county debt, the county would hold the deeds in a lease-back arrangement, and Meta carries the costs. Instead of property tax, Meta would make payments in lieu of taxes to the county and the school district.
- Roughly US$130 million in payments toward water, roads and public safety, including about US$45 million for a new water treatment plant in Maysville, according to WVXU.
- Closed-loop cooling; Meta estimates yearly water use close to that of a golf course.
- Meta pays for the power transmission upgrades, estimated at several hundred million dollars.
A Cooperative Utility and a Coal Plant Next Door
The power side sits with East Kentucky Power Cooperative. In October 2025 the Kentucky Public Service Commission approved EKPC's special tariff for data centers of 15 MW and more, with extra conditions for the largest loads, a separate commission-approved contract for each site and higher collateral, WKMS reported at the time. The same report mentioned an undisclosed plan for Mason County of about 1,200 MW, close to the output of EKPC's coal-fired Spurlock station in that county. The figure now on the table is 2.2 GW.
Not everyone is pleased. Residents of a mobile home park will probably have to move, a lawsuit has been filed, and a historic cemetery found on the land by LIDAR has to be relocated.
What Has Not Been Said Yet
Nothing published so far covers on-site generation, standby power or fuel. A campus of this size on a rural site will still need a fleet of standby generators, an air permit for them, and a fuel plan that works when tanker deliveries are slow, whether that means belly tanks, bulk storage or both. On a phased build those decisions are usually made phase by phase, and the first phase is the one that sets the pattern. For suppliers, the useful question to the developer is which phase gets its generators first, and under which permit.
Sources: WVXU, WCPO, LEX 18, Data Center Digest, WKMS