For visitors arriving here for the first time. The fourteen questions below answer almost everything anyone has asked at community meetings, on Facebook, in press calls, and in commissioner conversations since this began.
Project Red Clay is the working name of an approximately 1,000-acre hyperscale data center campus proposed by Cloverleaf Infrastructure at the intersection of U.S. Highway 80 and Alabama Highway 21 in Burkville, northeast Lowndes County, Alabama — about six miles southwest of Montgomery.
A hyperscale data center is a large industrial facility — millions of square feet — full of computer servers operated by a single company (typically Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, or a similar 'hyperscaler'). The facility runs continuously, drawing the electrical and water demand of a small city. The facility Cloverleaf has described to Lowndes residents would be approximately 5 million square feet — roughly four times the size of Meta's existing facility 12 miles away in Hope Hull.
Cloverleaf is a Houston-based site developer founded in 2024. They do not build, own, or operate data centers. Their business model is to assemble land, secure power and approvals, and then sell the shovel-ready package to a hyperscaler. They have raised $300 million from NGP Energy Capital Management and Sandbrook Capital (the latter anchored by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan) and are pursuing 10–15 gigawatts of peak power capacity across multiple sites nationally.
An unnamed hyperscaler. Cloverleaf has not publicly identified the operator-tenant, and would not be the owner long-term in any case. Their pattern in Port Washington, Wisconsin was to assemble the land and then hand the project to Vantage Data Centers for an $8 billion campus build. Whatever Cloverleaf promises Lowndes will be inherited — or not — by whichever hyperscaler eventually owns the asset.
Not formally, as of May 2026. They are pre-positioning. The County Commission can act in advance to make the future request unsuccessful — most directly by passing a resolution to deny any abatement, or by adopting the five demands of the coalition platform as preconditions on any future vote.
HB399 is an Alabama law passed in April 2026 (effective January 1, 2027) that caps the data-center property-tax abatement at 20 years, down from 30. Cloverleaf is racing the deadline so it can lock Project Red Clay in under the existing 30-year ceiling. See /hb399 for the full explainer.
Cloverleaf claims a $1.5 billion investment, ~$75 million per year in net tax revenue (after abatements), 1,000+ construction jobs over 3+ years, and 50–100 permanent jobs after construction. They have pledged $10 million in 'community benefits' through the Central Alabama Community Foundation: $1 million up front, the remaining $9 million milestone-gated. None of these promises are binding on the unnamed eventual operator.
Five demands, each a procedural condition that should be satisfied before any County Commission vote on tax abatement, road infrastructure, or water service: (1) public disclosure of the operator-tenant; (2) gallons-per-day water disclosure with third-party verification; (3) megawatt + ratepayer-protection escrow; (4) education-tax carve-out; (5) tenant-binding community-benefits agreement that survives sale of the asset. See /demands for the full text.
Five Lowndes County Commissioners. As of May 2026: two are aligned with the LCEDC's recruitment of Cloverleaf and walked out on Vice-Chair Farrior's anti-abatement motion (Chair King and Commissioner Harris). Two are on record opposing any abatement (Vice-Chair Farrior and Commissioner Barganier). Commissioner Hayes is the swing vote. See /who-decides.
Yes, repeatedly. Cloverleaf has six publicly known prior projects. They withdrew from Greenleaf, Wisconsin (January 2026) after a single ~100-resident community meeting. They withdrew from Dundee Township, Michigan (October 2025) after the village council voted to block water supply. They did not move forward in Edwardsville, Illinois (March 2026) after public records exposed nearly a year of secret discussions. Troy, Illinois's mayor proposed a moratorium in February 2026. Cloverleaf's own Chief Development Officer publicly acknowledged the company 'should have done more public communication and listening.' See /cloverleaf/playbook.
Yes — almost 200 community groups across more than 24 states, per Data Center Watch (May 2026). $64 billion in U.S. data center projects have been blocked or delayed by community opposition. Northampton County, NC adopted a 32-month moratorium. Durham, NC adopted a 60-day moratorium. Manitowoc County, WI's committee recommended a moratorium. Port Washington, WI voters passed a ballot measure requiring voter approval for tax incentives. See /movement.
Cloverleaf can answer none of the five demands today. They have not named the tenant. They have not put gallons per day on paper. They have not filed for ratepayer protection at the Public Service Commission. They have not agreed to carve out the education millage. They have not agreed to a tenant-binding community-benefits agreement. The County Commission is being asked to lock in 30 years of tax abatement before any of those questions has an answer. The single sentence is: 'We are not against investment. We are against bad deals.'
The fastest, most leveraged actions: (1) Sign the petition at c.org/RpsYX4npHf. (2) Send the demands letter to the County Commission and the Alabama Department of Commerce — the form generator at /take-action takes 90 seconds. (3) Show up at the next County Commission meeting. (4) Hand a printed one-pager to a neighbor. (5) Share the graphics from /share on Facebook, Instagram, or X with one of the pre-written captions.
/press for the press kit; /movement for sister coalitions; /cloverleaf for the developer record; /lcedc for the structural-conflict argument; /the-harm for the six harm deep-dives. Every claim on the site is footnoted to a source you can verify — click any superscript citation number to see the source pop up.