Possible Data Center Wrong for Wrightstown, Residents Say
Officials in village northeast of Appleton have been in communication with data center builder.
A village of Wrightstown resident speaks out at a listening session the village hosted on May 19 about data centers. Joe Schulz/WPR
While local leaders in the northeast Wisconsin village of Wrightstown say they haven’t received a formal development proposal, some local residents are making their feelings known in advance — they don’t want a data center in town.
Residents spoke out Tuesday during the second of four planned community discussions on data centers at Wrightstown Village Hall.
The village has said the listening sessions are meant to give residents a chance to ask questions and voice concerns as a data center development company has been searching for potential sites in the region.
“There is no proposal in front of us,” said Village Board President Dean Erickson. “I can guarantee you that we’ll take this into consideration, but, like everything, I will not make a choice until we have a proposal in front of us.”
But emails released as part of an open records request show Wrightstown officials began communicating with Cloverleaf Infrastructure about a possible project as early as January 2026.
Cloverleaf has expressed interest in developing a hyperscale data center project in northeast Wisconsin. The company previously helped a controversial data center in Port Washington get off the ground.
The company has given Wrightstown agreements and documents from Port Washington as a template for annexation, zoning and pre-development agreements.
In a March email, Aaron Bilyeu, chief development officer for Cloverleaf Infrastructure, told Village Administrator Travis Coenen that a northeast Wisconsin project would be similar in scale to the first phase of the data center under construction in Port Washington.
In a Jan. 12 email, Travis Armistead, project development manager for Cloverleaf, told Coenen the company had “a few leads” that could “hopefully land us close to the Village of Wrightstown’s border.”
Coenen emailed Armistead on Jan. 23 referencing a pair of other communities the developer had looked at for potential data center sites.
“We will strategize on a better plan for Wrightstown as I see both Greenleaf and Kewaunee have not gone well,” Coenen wrote.
Coenen did not respond to an interview request ahead of Tuesday’s listening session.
The Village of Wrightstown hosted a community listening session about data centers on Tuesday, May 19. Joe Schulz/WPR
Bilyeu told WPR that the company is aware that the village is conducting the community meetings.
“Cloverleaf is continuing to look for opportunities to develop data centers in Northeast Wisconsin,” he said in an email. “We have had preliminary conversations with several communities, including the Village of Wrightstown.”
At the listening session, Chris Smith, an attorney hired by the village, said the meetings with the community would help shape the village board’s decision-making process if a formal proposal comes forward.
“If this group that is interested in this area comes forward and says, ‘We want to rezone property or we want to annex property,’ we want to be able to tell the village board what we’ve heard at these sessions,” he said.
But residents who spoke at the meeting largely opposed the project. Some raised environmental concerns related to data centers, while others expressed opposition because they worried that such a development could lead to a loss of farmland.
Wrightstown resident Roland Schmidt said he’s “vehemently opposed” to a data center in the community. He felt there isn’t enough information showing that a data center would benefit residents.
Chris Smith, an attorney hired by the village of Wrightstown, left, speaks to residents during a community listening session about data centers on May 19. Joe Schulz/WPR
“Farmland will never go back to farmland. Period,” he said. “I live in this community because I love the farmland. I love to turkey hunt. I love to deer hunt. I love to duck hunt. I love to goose hunt. I love to walk into nature.”
Marinette resident Andi Rich spoke out at the meeting because she doesn’t want to see a data center in northeast Wisconsin. Rich said she had transparency concerns about the village’s handling of a possible project and the emails between the village and Cloverleaf.
“The stories that we’re hearing from other communities about how it was just bulldozed over them — and everything was already in place, and they didn’t have time to stop it — I think that they were absolutely trying to do that here,” she said.
Village Board Trustee Sue Byers, who declined an interview, said at the meeting that a developer was looking at land in the neighboring town of Wrightstown.
She said the village was in contact with Cloverleaf to look at what other municipalities hosting data centers had done to regulate them at the local level.
“The village wanted to know, how best can we write our ordinances to protect us as best we can? What information do we need to be looking at to tighten up our regulation?” Byers said. “If it fails here, it could go to the town of Wrightstown, and the town of Wrightstown could have less restrictive zoning ordinances.”
The village board’s agenda for a meeting Tuesday night included an item related to emails the village has received regarding data centers.
Residents speak out against possible data center in northeast Wisconsin’s village of Wrightstown was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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