Data center moratoriums and restrictions in Wisconsin (2026)

Local actions in Wisconsin

Blocked or delayed projects in Wisconsin

• Caledonia site (Project Nova): Microsoft abandoned the 244-acre Project Nova site on October 8, 2025, days after plan-commission approval, citing community feedback, and said it would work with Caledonia and Racine County to identify an alternate site; no replacement site had been announced as of August 2026. Microsoft's separate Mount Pleasant expansion of more than $13B approved January 2026 continues, but no source documents it as a relocation of this project.
• Lighthouse (Stargate) campus: Construction began with a December 2025 groundbreaking and was underway through mid-2026 despite protests, a failed mayoral recall effort, and the April 7, 2026 referendum (66%), which constrains only future incentives over $10M and not the existing $458M TID. Three suits were active as of July 2026 (Sierra Club/MEA v. DNR over the skipped environmental impact statement, business groups over the TID-referendum ordinance, Oracle v. PSC over financial rules); none has halted construction, though on August 6, 2026 the PSC ruled ATC's transmission-line application incomplete, restarting that separate approval process.

What one campus pays a local government

The parent piece's calculator puts a single large campus at $2M to $90M a year in local revenue, depending on the tax regime and abatements. The reference campus (Project Blue scale: $3.6B of capital, 286 MW) pays about $157M to local governments over 10 years. Permanent jobs run around 50 per facility.

Run your own numbers in the calculator on the parent piece. Jurisdictions in Wisconsin that say no give up this revenue, not the jobs.