Los Angeles based Metrobloks won 5 to 2 approval from the Southfield City Council in December 2025 to build a 100 megawatt, roughly 1.5 billion dollar data center on about 12 acres near Inkster Road between 11 Mile Road and I-696. The company plans closed loop cooling that uses only 10 to 20 gallons of water a day and expects to create about 35 permanent jobs. Nearly six hours of public comment preceded the council's vote, with some residents noting Metrobloks has not yet completed a data center project anywhere.
Oakland University's Board of Trustees voted 7 to 0, with one abstention, in June 2026 to tentatively advance a 20 megawatt, 15 acre data center and AI institute with developer Fairmount Properties on a campus parking lot. The site was moved after concerns about a nearby Native American heritage area, and the board still has about a year of due diligence ahead before any final approval. Students and some community members have protested the process, saying the board voted before public comment was fully heard.
Verrus wants to build a six building, 1.8 million square foot data center called Project Flex on 172 acres off Milford Road in Lyon Township, near South Lyon. The township's planning commission conditionally approved the project in September 2025, valid only until September 2027, and Verrus submitted revised plans on August 13, 2026 addressing noise, lighting, and stormwater concerns with taller acoustic walls and relocated transmission lines. The township has since pulled the project from its September 14, 2026 planning commission agenda and no new hearing date has been announced.
Sansone Group's Wixom Industrial One LLC proposed a three building, more than 500,000 square foot data center campus on about 55 acres at 30625 South Wixom Road in Oakland County. The City of Wixom had imposed a data center moratorium in March 2026, and Wixom Industrial One sued the city in federal court on August 7, 2026, alleging the moratorium unlawfully targeted its pending application. Wixom's council passed new data center zoning rules on August 26, 2026, effective by September 6, 2026, ending the moratorium, and the city has since asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit as moot.
An operating EdgeConneX data center site in Oakland County, MI, mapped in OpenStreetMap and the IM3 Open Source Data Center Atlas. About 41,000 square feet of building is mapped.
DTE Electric is asking the commission for a 9.7% residential increase (2027 electric rate case (docket U-22046)). On a $160 monthly bill that is about $13 to $18 a month. 2026 electric distribution rate case (docket U-21860) raised residential rates 4.1% from March 2026: about $6 to $8 a month on a $160 bill. The order is meant to keep this one data center's power costs off the bills of regular DTE residential customers, but critics argue the fast, largely ex parte approval process did not fully test that promise.
DTE Electric filed a new rate case in 2026 asking for a 474.3 million dollar increase, about 9.7 percent more from residential customers, for a period starting March 2027. DTE separately offered to pause future rate hike requests for two years if this case gets a constructive outcome and its Saline Township data center opens on time, an offer Attorney General Dana Nessel called a ransom note that ties ordinary ratepayer relief to data center approvals. On August 28, 2026 Nessel filed testimony recommending the commission cut the increase to about 134.5 million dollars, roughly 2 percent, and require data centers to be billed as a separate rate class that covers their own added grid costs; the case remains pending with no decision yet.
Every Michigan rate case in dollars a month, with hearing dates: willmybillgoup.com, our rate case tracker.
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