A group of Dakota County residents is pushing back on plans for a massive data center, and it’s one of many such campaigns in communities across Minnesota.

In Farmington, developers received local approval for a 2.5 million square foot “hyperscale” data center on land once reserved for a new school, as well as a former golf course.

“If we don’t pay attention to what’s going on and advocate for ourselves, no one else is going to,” said Kathy Johnson, a Farmington resident and founder of the Coalition for Responsible Data Center Development. “I think money is driving this and quality of life is not being considered. We have to do that. Quality of life matters to the people that live here and it matters to me.”

Data centers aren’t new to Minnesota; a 2011 law passed by state lawmakers created incentives for major tech companies to move servers here. Their footprints, however, aren’t nearly as large as what’s being proposed in Farmington.

Even Meta’s $800 million project in Rosemount, at roughly 700,000 square feet, pales in comparison.

Mo Feshami, another Farmington resident who works in tech, said he first supported the idea of bringing a new data center to Dakota County.

“I thought if a data center comes in there won’t be as many houses or cars or strain on the school system – until I realized this is a hyperscale data center,” he lamented. “The data centers I used to work in, at most they used 10 megawatts. This is 708 megawatts. We used to have it in one or two floors of a large commercial building. This has its own 340-plus acres facility.”

Hyperscale data centers are currently on the table in nearly a dozen other sites in Minnesota: Hermantown, Bemidji, Monticello, Lakeville, North Mankato, Faribault and Pine Island. 

The group of residents in Farmington have filed suit to block construction, first on technical grounds but later added to the complaint with concerns about the environment.

The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy has likewise filed suits on behalf of five other communities, as well as becoming a party to the Farmington case.

“I think there is a place for data centers in Minnesota,” Feshami added. “Putting it in the middle of a residential neighborhood is not the right place for it.”

According to court documents, the City of Farmington’s current water use is around 2.14 million gallons of water a day, and the hyperscale data center would more than double that demand. 

The machines, moreover, would need 700 megawatts of energy to keep running, and most power plants in Minnesota don’t even produce that capacity in a day.

“It is going to affect the wells. It’s going to affect the air quality, the sound quality, or our entire end of this community,” Kathy Johnson lamented.

Managers at Tract, the Denver-based land development company pushing the Farmington project, did not return WCCO’s calls or emails. A spokesman for the city said officials can’t comment amid ongoing litigation.

At a city council session last summer, a Tract executive promised the data center could bring up to 300 permanent jobs to Farmington, as well as an extra $16 million in property taxes. 

A judge in November denied Farmington’s motion to dismiss the case. There is no timetable yet for the next steps in the process.

CHAMPLIN, Minn. (FOX 9) – Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman is set to return to the Senate for the 2026 Legislative Session on Feb. 17 after recovering from an attempted assassination.

Senator Hoffman returns with gratitude

What they’re saying:

Hoffman expressed deep gratitude for the support he received from family, friends, and colleagues during his recovery.

“The support my family and I have received over these past months has been extraordinary,” Hoffman said in a statement, while emphasizing that his return is driven by a sense of calling rather than obligation.

Hoffman plans to resume his duties as Chair of the Senate Human Services Committee, focusing on Medicaid program integrity and ensuring continuity of care for vulnerable populations in Minnesota.

In his statement, Hoffman highlighted the bipartisan outreach he received, noting that “in moments like these, politics fades and humanity takes over.”

He also appreciated the genuine concern from colleagues across the political spectrum, which reinforced his commitment to responsible leadership.

Hoffman encouraged his constituents in Senate District 34 to continue reaching out with concerns and ideas as the legislative session begins. He expressed his gratitude to the people of District 34 and Minnesotans for their compassion and support.

The backstory:

At about 2 a.m. on June 14, 2025, a man posing as a law enforcement officer was at Hoffman’s front door. He, his wife Yvette and their daughter, Hope, were home at the time. They came to the door to see what was going on when the suspect opened fire.

Both John and Yvette Hoffman were shot multiple times.

The incident was allegedly a politically-motivated attack, for which Vance Boelter is currently charged and in custody while he awaits trial.

“Survival was my only, the priority I had was survival, that was the only priority going on in my head,” Hoffman told FOX 9 in January. “To me it was also, ‘Am I dreaming this? Is this really happening?’ Once it happened, when he wasn’t who he said he was, then it was survival.”

READ MORE: John Hoffman reflects on June 14 shooting: ‘I had 9 holes in my body’

A Tuesday Senate hearing is set to expose billions in fraud in Minnesota as well as foreign backing for anti-ICE agitators across the country, Sen. Josh Hawley’s office told Fox News Digital.

The hearing before the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Disaster Management, which Hawley chairs, will feature testimony from a Minnesota state senator and representatives of third-party watchdog groups. Systemic fraud backed by transnational groups has stolen billions from child nutrition, FEMA assistance, housing, Medicaid and substance abuse services, the testimony is expected to say.

“American taxpayers are getting robbed blind—billions stolen in Minnesota, and hundreds of billions siphoned out of the country by transnational criminals every year—all while foreign actors coordinate chaos on our streets,” Hawley told Fox News in a statement.

“Enough is enough. It’s time to root out the dark money and shut down the foreign influence,” he added.

CONGRESS OPENS ‘INDUSTRIAL-SCALE FRAUD’ PROBE IN MINNESOTA, WARNS WALZ DEMANDS ARE ‘JUST THE BEGINNING’

Minnesota State Sen. Mark Koran’s testimony will highlight the role Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison played in allowing fraud to fester and spread across the state in what he calls the “largest expansion and fastest acceleration of fraud this country has ever seen.”

Witnesses are expected to say that senior officials were not only aware of the fraud but have also taken steps to hide it from public scrutiny by backdating audit records and cracking down on whistleblowers.

A Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) whistleblower told Fox News that she was the victim of a “smear campaign” after raising red flags about fraud in the state since 2019.

MINNESOTA DHS WHISTLEBLOWER DETAILS ‘SMEAR CAMPAIGN’ AFTER REPORTING FRAUD CONCERNS TO STATE

Federal prosecutors estimate that up to $9 billion was stolen through a network of fraudulent fronts posing as daycare centers, food programs and health clinics. The majority of those charged, so far, in the ongoing investigation are part of Minnesota’s Somali population.

In addition to Koran, lawmakers will hear testimony from Seamus Bruner, the vice president of the Government Accountability Institute; Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the acting vice president of Policy & Government Affairs for the Project on Government Oversight, and Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Government.

Talcove’s testimony will focus on transnational groups that he says are exploiting federal assistance programs and using stolen funds support “organized crime, drug trafficking, human exploitation, and, in some cases, terrorist-affiliated or hostile foreign actors.”

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Bruner’s testimony will also focus on foreign influence, linking the funding streams to foreign actors, including individuals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.