Regardless of whether estimated new property taxes are accurate, Hut 8 Corp. would guarantee Logan County schools and local governments $65 million a year in annual payments if the company’s proposed data center becomes a reality.
Gregory Irwin, senior vice president of energy origination and asset management for the Florida-based company, made that pledge April 29 during a contentious three-hour meeting of the Logan County Board.
About 100 people, almost all of them opposed to Hut 8’s proposed 500-megawatt, $5 billion Logan Prairie Data Center to be built on about 250 acres of farm ground near Latham, attended the meeting in the rotunda of the county courthouse in Lincoln. The board called the meeting to discuss requests from the public to extend a 60-day moratorium on accepting data center applications after the moratorium expired in late April.
Many attendees indicated they were upset when the board voted unanimously to postpone consideration of a moratorium extension until the board’s Zoning and Economic Development Committee discusses the matter. The committee will meet on the issue at 6 p.m. May 13 at the Oasis Senior Center, 2810 Woodlawn Road, Lincoln.
In the meantime, two Logan County governmental bodies are considering making recommendations to the County Board on a proposed ordinance that would allow Hut 8 to build the data center by requesting county approval for a “conditional use” permit. Such a permit would put certain requirements and commitments in writing.
Without that regulatory path, the only option for the company would be to ask the County Board to change the proposed site’s agricultural zoning to a different classification.
Logan County’s proposed data center ordinance, initially modeled after a measure adopted by the Sangamon County Board in summer 2025, will be discussed at the 6 p.m. May 6 meeting of the Logan County Regional Planning Commission and the 7:30 p.m. May 7 meeting of the county’s Zoning Board of Appeals. Both meetings will be at the Oasis Senior Center.
The approval process has been slowed somewhat by the recent resignation of District 5 County Board member Michael DeRoss. He had spearheaded the board’s initial evaluation of Hut 8’s first application, which the company withdrew in December with plans to resubmit.
DeRoss, 68, a retired Chicago Public Schools political science teacher, was appointed to the all-Republican County Board in 2023 and elected in 2024. He said he resigned because his $65-per-meeting pay as a board member wasn’t worth the stress of being accused by data center opponents of accepting bribes from Hut 8 and subjected to other insults. The stress included a death threat that he reported to the Logan County Sheriff’s Office, he said.
DeRoss said he was leaning toward supporting the Hut 8 project because of the new jobs it could bring but wanted to hear more.
He faced scorn on social media for alleging the local Democratic Party was behind the opposition. A Democratic official denied that was the case.
DeRoss, whose name is still on the November ballot for County Board, said he hasn’t decided whether he will formally withdraw his candidacy and eliminate the possibility of being reelected.
Hut 8 officials have said the proposed data center, which would rent space to technology companies for their computer servers to support internet functions and artificial intelligence around the world, would generate up to $65 million a year in new Logan County property taxes. For perspective, total property tax collections from all property owners in Logan County by all taxing bodies amount to $55 million annually.
Opponents of the project, which include Logan County Indivisible and Sustain Logan County Communities, have said Hut 8’s estimates for new property tax benefits may be overblown. Opponents note that Sangamon County officials have estimated a 634-megawatt, $500 million data center proposed by Dallas-based CyrusOne and recently approved by the Sangamon County Board for Talkington Township would generate $5 million to $6 million in new property taxes.
Jennifer Bryant, the Logan County supervisor of assessments, said she hasn’t yet received enough information from Hut 8 to make a precise estimate.
But based on the way Meta’s data center in DeKalb was assessed, it appears that Hut 8’s 1 million-square-foot data center would generate $245 million for Logan County taxing bodies over a 15-year period.
That would amount to a $16 million-a-year increase in total tax collections for the affected taxing bodies, such as the Mount Pulaski school district and Logan County government. Such an amount is one-quarter of Hut 8’s estimate but still double the property tax revenue estimates for the 1.8 million-square-foot CyrusOne project.
If new property taxes would come up short of $65 million annually, Irwin said Hut 8 would be willing to specify in its conditional use permit that the company would make up the difference in a “community benefit agreement” with county government officials.
“The goal is to give the county more certainty, not vague economic projections,” Hut 8 officials said in a question-and-answer sheet distributed at the April 29 meeting.
Several people at the meeting said the County Board shouldn’t delay in turning down any and all data center applications.
They said they worry that the Hut 8 data center would pose health hazards, disturb a pastoral rural landscape, take valuable farm land out of production, create unwanted noise, lead to even more data centers in the county, create few jobs for county residents and add to a nationwide trend of power consumption by the centers driving up electric rates.
Hut 8 officials said the company’s “closed-loop” design for the project would use recycled water to cool servers, and that the data center would meet and exceed any state and local noise and backup generator emissions regulations.
Hut 8 contended its project wouldn’t cause electric rates to rise, and the company is willing to agree to a decommissioning plan to ensure redevelopment if the site ever were abandoned.
Central Illinois building trade unions have supported the project, which Hut 8 said would create about 1,500 temporary construction jobs and 100 to 200 full-time positions.
“Data center development is not going away anytime soon,” Riki Dial Jr., district director of the Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council, wrote in a letter to Logan County Board members. “It comprises one of the fastest growing sectors of the construction industry, and if we don’t build them, someone else will. Turning down such projects sends a chilling effect throughout the development community that Logan County is not a hospitable place to do business.”
Rachel Stechman, a resident of Atlanta, Illinois, and founder of Logan County Indivisible, said there’s a “lack of transparency” by county officials and a “lot of distrust between the residents and the county’s governmental bodies.”
She said emails from Hut 8 to county officials that Indivisible obtained through the Freedom of Information Act contributed to residents’ skepticism and demonstrated high-pressure tactics Hut 8 is using to win approval.
The emails show detailed changes that Hut 8 has made in data center ordinance drafts. A Feb. 23 email from Irwin says a battery-storage facility, proposed by a different company, would likely be built at or near the Hut 8 site if the Hut 8 plan fails. A battery storage site would generate a fraction of the jobs and new taxes compared with a data center, Irwin wrote.
Irwin said in the same email that further delays in approval from the county would doom the Hut 8 project.
District 6 County Board member Dale Nelson said it isn’t illegal or unethical for Hut 8 officials and other people to make suggestions about the data center ordinance. All of those suggestions will be considered by the Planning Commission, ZBA and ultimately by the County Board, he said.
Nelson said the board “has made every effort to address and respond to the questions and recommendations presented by” opponents of the Hut 8 project.
