The village of Wrightstown, Wisconsin, is set to hold a referendum to decide whether it should pursue a data center project being proposed by powered land firm Cloverleaf.

Wrightstown Village Board members voted to hold the non-binding referendum on data centers after villagers raised concerns about the Cloverleaf project.

The vote, slated for August 11, will ask whether village officials should pursue data center projects in future. Wrightstown has some 3,300 residents.

"The intent of this is that it takes the opinion of the community, and if something is proposed at some point, this factors into the way [the Village Board] will move forward with that process," village administrator Travis Coenen told the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

Cloverleaf has been holding discussions with officials in Wrightstown since the turn of the year about rezoning land for a data center development of up to 1GW.

Though a site has not yet been identified, at a series of meetings held in the last month, residents have expressed their concern about such a facility being built.

Cloverleaf’s chief development officer, Aaron Bilyeu, and vice president of power and utilities Nur Bernhardt, met with villagers last week to try and ease their concerns.

In comments reported by WeAreGreenBay, Bilyeu told residents: “(We want to) work with people so they understand the truth about the current design of data centers.

“A lot of the concerns that people have are based on the development standards and the way that data centers used to be developed.”

It is not the first time Cloverleaf has tried to progress a data center project in Wisconsin. It is working on a 1,900 acre site near the city of Port Washington, and is reportedly set to lease at least part of it to data center firm Vantage.

Earlier this year, it backed out of a project in Greenleaf, just four miles from Wrightstown, after being told by councilors that data centers were “off the table” in the village.

Founded in February 2024, Cloverleaf buys land for data center companies and works with utilities to upgrade the necessary power infrastructure.

Cloverleaf is also backing projects in Georgia and Michigan.