Meta, operating through the entity Morning Hornet LLC, is expanding its Stanton Springs data center campus onto the Newton County portion of the industrial park, on land the Newton County Board of Commissioners approved a development agreement for. Morning Hornet took over a second Stanton Springs project (previously held under the name Baymare LLC) that was reported to call for an initial data center followed by additional buildings roughly every two years, backed by a large bond issued by the Joint Development Authority of Jasper, Morgan, Newton and Walton counties. Exact current square footage and a precise recent update date for this specific Newton County phase could not be confirmed from public reporting available for this entry; homeowners near Stanton Springs should expect continued phased construction.
Georgia
Data centers in Newton County
We track 3 projects inside Newton County and 6 more within 25 miles of it. For a distance-specific answer, check your own address.
In Newton County
Developers John B. Williams and Universal Planning and Development, through JBW Investments LLC and JF Land Investments LLC, filed plans on March 27, 2025 for a data center campus on Gregory Road in unincorporated Newton County, just south of Lake Varner between Alcovy Road and Flat Rock Road. Of a roughly 520 acre tract, about 213 acres would hold 1.4 million square feet of data center buildings built in three phases through 2036, with the remaining acreage set aside for 27 residential lots. The developers are seeking annexation into the City of Covington and rezoning, with an estimated buildout value of 5.7 billion dollars and projected annual tax revenue of 19 million dollars.
Atlanta based TPA Group and SC Infrastructure LLC are proposing a nine building, roughly 2.6 million square foot data center campus (reported as 317 to 338 acres depending on the source) northeast of the Interstate 20 and State Route 11 interchange near Social Circle. The land is caught in a jurisdiction dispute: Newton County says the parcels were never properly annexed into the City of Social Circle and threatened legal action to block the city from approving the rezoning, while Social Circle's planning commission has recommended rezoning from agricultural to light industrial. A special use permit hearing was tabled to May 26, 2025, and no final resolution had been confirmed as of the most recent reporting found.
Within 25 miles of Newton County
Power bills in Newton County
Most of the county is served by Snapping Shoals EMC, with parts on Georgia Power or Walton EMC or Central Georgia EMC or Covington municipal (city owned) or Oxford municipal (city owned) or Mansfield municipal (city owned). Covington, Oxford and Mansfield run their own municipal electric departments for those cities. As a cooperative, its wholesale power comes mostly from Oglethorpe Power.
Oglethorpe Power, which generates most of the electricity Georgia's EMCs sell, is adding natural gas plants it ties to data center and industrial load. EMC rates are set by each cooperative's board, not the Public Service Commission, so watch your EMC's rate notices.
Oglethorpe Power is the wholesale generation and transmission cooperative owned by Georgia's 38 electric membership cooperatives, and it is not directly rate regulated by the Georgia Public Service Commission the way Georgia Power is, so there is no PSC docket number for its generation projects. Oglethorpe Power has announced plans to build new natural gas generation to meet rising load from its EMC members, including a large combined cycle gas plant near its existing Smarr Energy Facility in Monroe County targeted for around 2029, plus a smaller gas addition at the Talbot Energy Facility targeted for 2028. Reported cost estimates for the Monroe County plant vary across sources, from around 2 billion dollars to as much as 3.3 billion dollars, so the exact figure is unclear. No specific verified dollar impact on individual electric membership cooperative household bills has been published yet, since those retail rates are set separately by each member cooperative.
Alerts for Newton County
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