When DCIP Group started pitching a data center project to DeSoto County residents, the story was simple: a modest 34-acre operation on a shuttered natural gas plant site near Roan Street. But internal county emails and rezoning filings tell a very different tale—one that reveals ambitions roughly 30 times larger than what locals say they were initially told.
The real plan is staggering. DCIP CEO Jon Brown confirmed that the company is fast-tracking approval for what could ultimately become a 1,315-acre hyperscale facility across six phases, with 8.3 million square feet of building space in the immediate expansion alone. An advisor for the company recently posted online that the expanded facility is on track to become one of the largest data centers on Earth. In April of last year, DeSoto County invited DCIP into a pilot Rapid Response Program that effectively cuts the standard government review period in half—a move that has only accelerated community concerns.
For a county frequently ranked among Florida’s poorest, the revenue promises are undeniably attractive. But the human cost is what’s keeping people awake at night. Senior Pastor Nathan Hedrick of the Arcadia Church of God—a gathering place rooted in a century of cowboy culture and family farming—has become an unlikely voice of resistance. When shown maps detailing how the expansion would metastasize from 34 acres to nearly 900 acres in its next phase, he pointed out what the projections failed to mention: the new high school sits directly in the project’s path. The new high school is right there. Instead of getting further from town, they’re getting closer to town; instead of getting further from residents, they’re getting closer to residents, Hedrick said. It’s like they’re deaf and not listening to us.
Here’s where the math gets uncomfortable. The initial phase of this mega-complex will generate only about 25 permanent jobs—hardly a game-changer for employment. The real payoff is taxable infrastructure revenue, which is substantial enough to explain why county commissioners fast-tracked the project and then went silent when WINK Investigations asked for comment. Every commissioner declined to respond.
Hedrick formally offered his church as a neutral town hall venue so developers and commissioners could hear directly from the public. No one accepted. He’s met with DCIP officials directly and doesn’t believe there’s bad faith at play, but he’s unambiguous about the stakes: This county is not for sale. A final, decisive county vote on the expansion and rezoning blueprints is scheduled for late July, giving a rural community of cowboys, farmers, and churchgoers less than a month to figure out how to stop—or shape—one of Earth’s largest data centers from being built in their backyard.
