Meta
Morning Hornet and Baymare data center campuses at Stanton Springs, near Social Circle
development agreement, signed, signed 2018-02-27
Operator: Meta
Developer: Morning Hornet LLC and Baymare LLC, both Delaware limited liability companies
Scale: 416 acres · 2,000,000 sq ft
The 2018 development agreement covers about 416 acres and caps the project at up to 2,000,000 square feet of finished interior space, 40% impervious, 75 feet tall. A second campus, Baymare, added roughly 612 to 628 acres across three counties in 2021; the county's own documents give both figures. Megawatts and capital investment appear in no primary document. The Baymare development agreement itself has never been published, so what follows is the 2018 agreement, which is the one you can actually read.
Verification: read from the signed document
A strong version: A fund that scales with the project, with a community seat on the body that spends it
Not addressed in the agreement.
community seat: no
None, and a commissioner said so on the record. There is no community fund, no annual contribution and no seat anywhere in either agreement. Meta runs a voluntary grants program that has given a reported $2.4 million in money and services across the four counties since 2020, but it is not a term of anything. When the second campus came to a vote in March 2021, Commissioner J.C. Henderson abstained and the minutes record that he was disappointed the companies do not give more back to the county.
A strong version: Incentives come back if the facility stops operating, not only if a jobs number is missed
Not addressed in the agreement.
None, and the remedies section makes the asymmetry plain. On a default the non-defaulting party may seek damages or specific performance, but default does not entitle anyone to terminate the agreement. The company may terminate for convenience on thirty days notice. There is no jobs test, no investment test and no repayment trigger. The one obligation that survives non-performance runs toward the company's side of the ledger: a payment in lieu of taxes tied to a fifth building must be paid by April 2033 whether or not the building is ever built. For contrast, the same authority's agreement with a different manufacturer at the same park carries a minimum investment, a job count, a deadline, and clawbacks the authority itself calls more stringent than any earlier project.
A strong version: A bond, escrow, or letter of credit that pays for teardown and site restoration if the operator walks
Not addressed in the agreement.
instrument: none
None. Not a bond, not an escrow, not even a covenant. If the use changes from a data center, Section 6.1.2 says only that the parties shall meet and discuss to reasonably determine whether the agreement needs modifying.
A strong version: The operator pays for its own interconnection and carries a minimum bill that survives it leaving
Not addressed in the agreement.
interconnect paid by: unknown · governed by: Walton EMC retail service and Georgia Transmission Corporation, neither of which is a party to the county agreement
The county agreement does not address electricity at all beyond consenting to on-site solar, geothermal and wind. Power comes from an electric membership corporation and the transmission company built the substation and supply lines, with the development authority granting easements across the land it owns and Meta leases. Who paid for the interconnection, and whether any minimum bill exists, does not appear in any county or authority document I have read.
A strong version: A stated cap or closed-loop cooling, plus public reporting
cap: 450,000 gal/day · reporting: yes · recycling required: no · cooling: evaporative
Real numbers, phased, with the strongest enforcement mechanism in this benchmark. Water is reserved at a maximum 450,000 gallons a day, phased 180,000 then 360,000 then 450,000, with peak flow of 2,500 gallons a minute for no more than 180 minutes a day. Sewer is capped at 125,000 gallons a day. The sewer system is sized for an evaporative cooling system, so this is not closed loop. A baseline monitoring report was filed and routine monitoring continues, though the customer was determined not to be a significant industrial user. What makes it unusual is the remedy: a violation lasting more than two consecutive days sends the parties to a mutually agreeable independent third party, after which the utility may cut off sewer service on thirty days notice, or ten days if the overage is 50% or more. Two things cut the other way. The development agreement separately lets the company drill its own wells for an alternative or redundant supply, which sits outside these caps entirely. And in a declared shortage the project gets top priority below only hospitals and essential public safety, its monthly allocation shall not be lowered, and the utility waives any right to cut service or impose a penalty.
Softening languageDevelopment Agreement Section 5.4.4: "The Company may access groundwater, by drilling well(s) or otherwise, to establish an alternative or redundant water supply."
A strong version: A numeric limit measured at the nearest residence or property line
Not addressed in the agreement.
No numeric limit, no measurement point and no setback in any Newton County document. The only noise in the authority's record is two citizen complaints about truck traffic and a question about a highway sound barrier.
A strong version: Binding job commitments with a consequence, not projections
Not addressed in the agreement.
local hire: no · prevailing wage: no · enforceable: no
No number anywhere, and the agreement says so twice over. The only employment language is a recital anticipating that the project will create jobs. Section 3.3, headed No Required Improvements, states that the company is not required to make any on-site or off-site improvements or perform any work under the agreement. The head of the company's community development for North America told the authority in 2023 that it prefers to hire local workers it can train, which is a preference, not a term. Again the contrast within the same park is instructive: the authority's agreement with a vehicle manufacturer there binds a minimum investment and thousands of jobs by a date certain.
Softening languageRecital C anticipates jobs. Section 3.3 removes any obligation to do anything: "The Company is not required to make any on-site or off-site improvements."
A strong version: Local subcontracting goals and haul-route road repair paid by the operator
Not addressed in the agreement.
local subcontracting: no · road repair: no · infrastructure: $1,500,000
The money mostly flows the other way. Article 4 waives, in their entirety, every county connection, permitting, plan inspection, land disturbance, building, electrical, plumbing, gas, mechanical, construction trailer and certificate of occupancy fee, and the county found the project worthy of a full exemption from impact fees. The only operator repair obligation is narrow: on a temporary closure of one parkway, restore any damaged road, curb, gutter or drainage to its previous condition. There is no haul route program. On the authority side the company contributed $1,500,000 of improvement funds, which the authority's own restated infrastructure agreement records as having been paid out of the bond issuance fee, plus up to $44,000 to reimburse repaving. The roads are owned and maintained by the authority as public rights of way.
A strong version: No NDA, the agreement is public, and an independent audit on a schedule
NDA: yes · agreement public: yes · dashboard: no · audit: none · independent: no
The agreement is public, and then does its best to make everything around it private. Section 8.1 acknowledges the agreement is a public record. Section 8.2 has the county covenant to hold confidential business information in strictest confidence, notify the company of any records request and give it two business days to respond before releasing anything. Section 8.4 goes further than any other deal here: the county shall not make a public announcement about entering into the agreement without the company's prior written consent, and on request must correct or disavow statements by people purporting to speak for the county. Section 9.3 provides no third party beneficiaries, so no resident can enforce a word of it, and Section 11.2 waives jury trial. There is no audit of any kind and no dashboard. At the authority, public comment is two minutes, must be signed up for in advance, must relate to an agenda item, and the minutes record that no response is required.
Softening languageSection 8.4: the county "shall not make any public announcement... regarding the Parties entering into this Agreement" without the company's prior written consent.
A strong version: A but-for test before any abatement, with the forgone revenue stated
years: 20 · PILOT: yes · but-for test: no
A Georgia bond for title abatement, described more candidly in the authority's own minutes than in any other document in this benchmark. The company draws on issued bonds to transfer the improvements and equipment it bought that year into the authority's name and pays rent back in the exact same amount, so no funds actually move; the minutes state plainly that property held in the authority's name is not subject to taxation, which is why the transfer is necessary. Two bond authorizations of $42,000,000,000 each, 2018 and 2021. The 2025 draws alone totalled $1,642,731,620. Against that, a twenty year payment in lieu of taxes: $2 million a year rising to $5 million for the first campus through 2042, and $3 million a year starting in 2026 for the second through 2046. The county actually received its share of an $8,000,000 payment in April 2026, $1,137,000 to the county and $1,863,000 to the school board, and that is real money. What is missing is the arithmetic: the valuation and tax savings methodology sits in an intergovernmental agreement among the tax assessors that has never been published, no forgone revenue estimate exists, and the but for test is an assertion in Section 3.1 rather than an analysis. The consideration for the whole agreement was ten dollars.
Softening languageSection 3.1 states the conclusion instead of testing it: "The Parties agree that the Company would not develop the Project without such confirmation from the County."
A sitting commissioner abstained on the second campus, telling the board he was disappointed the companies do not give more back to the county. source
The valuation and tax savings methodology sits in an intergovernmental agreement among the tax assessors of three counties that has never been published, which is the single largest documentary gap in this deal. source
Newton County adopted an emergency moratorium on data center applications in February 2026, finding that such development threatens its ability to provide adequate infrastructure, water and services, and extended it to October 2026. The 2018 agreement's own moratorium clause exempts this campus from it. source