.png)
A data center campus built for the
benefit of Bradley County
Bradley County set aside the Hiwassee Industrial Park for industry. As the digital economy becomes increasingly essential to our households, schools, hospitals and businesses, the infrastructure that powers it needs to be thoughtfully located. Housing a data center well means a campus that uses as little water and land as possible, keeps its sound and light within its own fence line, pays for every wire and every pipe that serves it without impacting electricity rates, and strengthens the county’s schools and services.
Project Midspan’s priorities
Project Midspan is guided by the principles that energy and infrastructure should pay their own way and go further for the people who live near it. We put neighbors first, we pay our own way, and we build lasting development standards.
Our Mission. To build the most water-efficient, quietest and well-screened data center campus in Tennessee, in a place the county already planned for industry, without a dollar of cost landing on local households.
Our vision. A campus that, ten years from now, Bradley County points to as one who got it right: a neighbor to Walker Valley High School that the school is glad to have, a taxpayer that funds classrooms and first responders, and a source of skilled careers for people who already live here.
Our values. Four commitments guide every decision on the site.
We pay our own way:
The project funds the power infrastructure, utility connections and road improvements it needs.
We put our neighbors first:
Decisions about distance, sound and light start with with what could affect the school and parcels nearest the site, not with what's easiest for us to build.
We say what we know and what we do not yet know:
Where a figure is still being engineered, we say so rather than guess.
We measure and we show our work:
The site plan is on file with the County and studies will be shared with the County as they are completed.
The project in brief
Project Midspan is a proposed data center campus in the Hiwassee Industrial Park on approximately 306 acres near Charleston, Tennessee in unincorporated Bradley County. The campus will pay the full cost of the power infrastructure that serves it and will not shift electricity costs to local homes and businesses.
Uses closed-loop cooling that saves water.
The campus will use closed-loop cooling, which is filled once and topped up in much smaller quantities only for maintenance, rather than the older evaporative systems that consume millions of gallons a day. It has no plans to draw water from the Hiwassee River, and the site does not touch the River.
Sits on land the county already planned for industry.
The site is inside the Hiwassee Industrial Park, designated industrial on the county’s own future land use map, in an established industrial corridor across from the Wacker Polysilicon facility. It is largely open, previously farmed land, and does not have river frontage.
Is quiet by design.
Sound at the property line will be no louder than a typical home air-conditioning unit, and the loudest recurring activity, backup generator testing, will be scheduled outside school hours and shared with the school in advance.
Keeps its distance.
Buildings will sit at least 100 feet from the property line and approximately 1,700 feet from the Walker Valley High School building, behind a new twenty-foot-deep evergreen screen that is written into the site plan.
What this means:
For Bradley County, that means new infrastructure, new tax revenue and new careers, without new costs for residents. Construction will support hundreds of jobs at its peak, with local contractors given the first opportunity to bid. Once operating, the campus will create permanent, benefits-eligible careers in electrical, mechanical, network and security trades, from entry-level technicians to facility managers and engineers, alongside the contractor and supplier roles that a campus of this kind sustains locally. Project Midspan will work with Bradley County Schools, Cleveland State Community College and local trades programs to build the pipeline that fills those roles with people who already live here.
For county government, the most durable benefit of a data center is simple: it is one of the largest additions to the local tax base Bradley County could attract, bolstering resources to strengthen county services without new taxes or levies on residents. And in Bradley County, over half of county property tax revenue goes to schools, so new revenue reaches classrooms first.
What that revenue can translate into for county services
Schools first
Because Tennessee counties direct the largest share of property tax to education and school infrastructure, data center taxes flow largely to classrooms.
First responders & infrastructure
Recurring revenue in host counties has funded fire and EMS capacity, road maintenance, and sidewalks. Project Midspan would welcome a structure that dedicates a defined share of its revenue to roads, fire and emergency services in the Charleston area.
The facts about Project Midspan
Project Midspan is being designed to minimize impacts to water, power, noise, safety, and neighborhoods. The differences from other proposals begin with the site itself.
The Project Midspan property in the Hiwassee Industrial Park is designated industrial on Bradley County’s future land use map as part of the county’s economic development plan. The campus sits in an established industrial corridor across from the Wacker Polysilicon North America facility (a 543 acre industrial site), and directly borders fewer than ten adjacent properties. No land is being annexed or rezoned for the project, and no farmland outside the industrial park is affected.
The site layout has over 100 feet of buffer distance between buildings and the property’s edge, and will employ the latest in noise suppression technology, putting the campus on par with a quiet office or normal residential background, and quieter than a typical home air conditioning unit. Exterior lighting will be limited to operational and security needs, with shielded, downward-facing fixtures, motion controls, and dimming where practicable to limit nighttime light spill.
Project Midspan pays the full cost of the electrical infrastructure built to serve it, including any grid upgrades, so no cost is shifted to households or small businesses. This is consistent with the principles of the federal Ratepayer Protection Pledge of March 2026, under which large power users “build, bring, or buy” new generation and cover the full cost of delivery infrastructure, and with the separate data center rate class adopted in Tennessee in August 2026, which is designed to keep data center costs from spreading to the residential rate base.
The campus is being engineered for water efficiency, and Project Midspan is completing preliminary engineering to confirm its actual water needs. Project Midspan will fund any public utility upgrades it requires, meaning growth is paid for by the project, not by Bradley County ratepayers. Engineering teams are prioritizing water efficiency throughout the planning process for Project Midspan. In contrast to legacy facilities that relied on heavy daily consumption, this campus will employ advanced closed-loop technology, filling systems initially and drawing minimal supply afterward for basic operational and facility needs. Project Midspan is currently assessing multiple options for initial and long-term water supply, including recycled resources, dedicated industrial wells that do not draw on the drinking-water aquifer, non-potable utility lines, and captured rainfall, with total usage figures to be established as site designs are completed. The project has no plans to draw water from the Hiwassee River.
.jpg)
The bottom line for Bradley County
Project Midspan is poised to become one of Bradley County’s largest single taxpayers, in the range Tennessee peers are already realizing, with recurring revenue for decades. That revenue arrives without new demands on the county’s schools, roads, water or power, because the upgrades the project needs are funded by the project. Project Midspan welcomes a structure that gives the County predictable revenue, including funding for fire and emergency services as peer counties have secured, and looks forward to working with the County Commission on terms that put Bradley County taxpayers first.
About the developer
Sustainable Development Capital LLP (“SDCL”) was established in 2007 and is a specialist investor, developer and fund manager focused on energy and resource efficiency. It finances and develops energy efficiency and clean energy projects across the commercial, industrial, healthcare and public sectors, reducing wasted resources, lowering costs and strengthening the reliability and resilience of essential infrastructure. SDCL has more than $2.5 billion in assets under management, with projects across the UK, Continental Europe, North America and Asia. Headquartered in London, the group and its investment vehicles also operate from offices in New York, Dublin and Hong Kong. SDCL is authorised and regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority and in Ireland by the Central Bank of Ireland.
.png)