The city of Conway is preparing land, money and time for the AI data center that will begin construction in Southwest Conway in the coming years. 

The center, which will be constructed at Lollie Road, will be a $1 billion, 300,000 square foot campus for an unnamed Fortune 100 company. 

In April of this year, the Conway City Council approved an understanding of agreement with Forgelight Ventures to allow the facility to be built in Conway. 

The agreement leased 336 acres of land for the construction of the facility. 

At the meeting, Chamber of Commerce president Brady Lacy said the project was larger than any other project the chamber was accustomed to seeing. 

Lacy said the facility will provide “hundreds of full-time high-quality, permanent jobs” and is a “big step forward for the community.”

Jamie Gates, executive director of Conway Development Corp and Chamber of Commerce vice president, said the project had been in development for over a year before the council approved it. 

The center will be constructed in a five-phase process.

“The project is a great fit for the site and community,” Gates said. “It represents a historic capital investment and will also bring a meaningful number of quality jobs across the spectrum of career stage and education.”

At the meeting, Gates said the facility will be powered through greywater – which is clean waste water which comes from appliances such as sinks or washing machines. 

“The reason we feel so good about from the very beginning is that we know water is a precious commodity for us and so from the very beginning, we said ‘the only way that something like this would work here if you could use greywater for cooling’ and they immediately said they were comfortable with that,” Lacy said.

The greywater will be supplied by the Tupelo Bayou Wastewater Treatment Plant through a Conway Corp designed pipeline. 

Gates also said the facility will use medium voltage supplied by Conway Corp and will pay the standard franchise fee. 

“This is not something that is going to exhaust Conway’s local power supply or our ability to attract future manufacturers,” Gates said. 

Lacy estimated the potential capital investment for the facility could be up to $60 billion, with $10 billion coming from real property and $50 billion coming from personal property. 

The council unanimously approved the agreement at the April 1 meeting. Though, in the months following the approval, many questions have been raised by Conway residents. 

In September, a meeting organized by the Faulkner County League of Women Voters featured Lacy – who provided new details about the project. 

Lacy said he had signed an NDA and was unable to provide the name of the company, but stressed the company’s goal to make a positive impact in the local community. 

He also revealed the company’s plans for employment opportunities on the campus. These will include software engineers, food service, security workers and construction jobs. 

Lacy said the agreement has bound Conway to a 30-year tax-abatement, which will knock off 65% of the property taxes the company would’ve paid. 

Though, in return, the company will provide $100,000 to the Conway Foundation for each new building constructed, Lacy said. The maximum provided in a single year will be $300,000. 

The stipulation will be that the money is spent in ways that align with community strategic plans and supposed company values – which are yet to be named. 

Naturally, the mysterious nature of the company and the agreement led to Lacy receiving a barrage of questions from attendees.

Most of the questions were focused around sustainability and costs, along with how the city of Conway could ensure the company acted responsibly considering the lax agreements on taxes and permits. 

In response, Lacy said “I’ve seen them really embrace the communities they are in. So, I can’t promise you everything, but I do think that out of all the potential players we could have locked arms with, I’m not sure we could’ve done better.” 

Lacy doubled down on his commitment to the company, saying “If we want a piece of the AI economy, I think we got a great partner to do that with.”

The trend of large technology corporations building plants in Arkansas is not a new one. 

In West Memphis, Sheridan and Little Rock, government officials have worked with companies such as Google to construct data centers similar to the ones coming to Conway. 

West Memphis’ Project Pyramid, which is being built in partnership with Google (under the front company name Groot LLC), is a 1,178 acre complex that broke ground earlier this month. 

The Sheridan Data Center, which was proposed on Oct. 21, is in development between Grant County officials and the Clean County Energy company. 

This facility, which will be a data center and solar farm, has sparked debate among county residents because of environmental concerns such as light pollution and water usage. 

Though, unlike in Conway, the Grant County quorum court has made no formal agreement. 

With the expansion of AI, many communities are seeing the prospect of a tech facility on the horizon. 

For Lacy and the city of Conway, transparency has (and will be) key in ensuring a smooth landing. 

At this time, the name of the company has not been revealed.