Data Center Census Near me

Gateway Digital Campus

Villa Ridge, Franklin County, MO

Also known as Diamond Farms, Diamond Farms Data Center, Diamond 66

ApprovedFranklin County Commission voted on September 15, 2026 to approve rezoning of the roughly 613-acre Diamond Farms/Diamond 66 site from residential and other districts to industrial use (Commission Orders 2026-255 and 2026-256), matching the Planning and Zoning Commission's 8-1 recommendation for approval from April 2026. Further site-plan and permitting steps would still be needed before construction.
  1. Rumored
  2. Proposed
  3. Approved
  4. Under construction
  5. Operating

Provident Data Centers is pursuing the Gateway Digital Campus, a data center project on roughly 613 acres at the interchange of Missouri Route 100 and Interstate 44 near Villa Ridge, on land held by the Eckelkamp family's Diamond Farms, LLC and Diamond 66, LLC, next to the Missouri Botanical Garden's Shaw Nature Reserve. Franklin County's Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the rezoning in April 2026, and the full County Commission approved it on September 15, 2026, the same day it adopted new countywide data-center rules. The developer describes a 13-building campus that would bring several billion dollars of investment, more than 3,000 jobs at peak, and over $50 million a year in local tax revenue, though a construction timeline has not been confirmed.

Key facts

Size & schedule

Site size612.8 acres [10]
Combined size of the two parcels rezoned: 39.5 acres (Diamond 66, LLC) and 573.3 acres (Diamond Farms, LLC). The developer's own site separately describes the planned campus as roughly 650 acres.
Source excerpt
“Diamond Farms, LLC submitted an application requesting the rezoning from the W district to the A district of approximately 573.3 acres, located on the south side of I-44, between Highway 100, St. Mary's Road, and Robertsville Road in the Boles Township”
Buildings13 [1]
Per the developer's project site; it says roughly half the site would remain undisturbed green space.
Permanent jobs (promised)250 [1]
Core data-center positions; the developer separately claims 750 additional service-sector jobs and 2,000 construction jobs, for a stated total above 3,000. A March 2026 local news report cited a lower service-sector estimate of about 350 jobs.
Construction jobs2,000 [1]

How big is that? Data center sizes compared with football fields and Central Park.

Power

UtilityAmeren Missouri [1]
Utility pages: Ameren Missouri · data centers and bills
Power supplyAmeren Missouri grid; developer says it will fund 100% of infrastructure and transmission upgrades needed to serve the site [1]

Water

CoolingClosed-loop water system [1]
Developer says the closed-loop design will use less water than roughly 100 households.

Figures are as stated by the cited source. Where sources disagree, each figure is shown.

Timeline

  1. Local reporting identifies the Eckelkamp family's Diamond Farms, LLC and Diamond 66, LLC as landowners in talks with a data center developer for roughly 613 acres adjoining Shaw Nature Reserve near Villa Ridge [3]

  2. Franklin County's Planning and Zoning Commission initially tables the rezoning request for six months before it is brought back sooner than that timeline [6]

  3. A roughly 11-hour Franklin County Planning and Zoning Commission hearing at Union High School draws over 1,000 attendees on both Franklin County data-center rezoning requests and proposed county data-center rules; the commission defers a decision [4]

  4. Franklin County's Planning and Zoning Commission votes 8-1 to recommend approval of the Diamond 66/Diamond Farms (Gateway Digital Campus) rezoning [10]

  5. The Missouri Times reports on the Planning and Zoning Commission's recommendation, citing projections of more than 3,000 jobs and tens of millions of dollars a year in tax revenue [2]

  6. First Alert 4 reports on continued community feedback sessions covering both Franklin County data-center proposals [7]

  7. The Franklin County Commission votes to approve the Diamond 66 and Diamond Farms rezoning requests (Commission Orders 2026-255 and 2026-256), rezoning the site from its prior districts to industrial (A district) use, and separately adopts new countywide data-center regulations [8]

Issues raised

  • The new county data-center regulations adopted the same day measure the required 1,000-foot setback from occupied homes rather than from property lines, which some residents said weakens the buffer developers had promoted [8].
  • Shaw Nature Reserve, a 2,400-acre property run by the Missouri Botanical Garden that borders the site, and nearby residents have raised concerns about water use, noise, and habitat effects [3][9].
  • Reported figures for the project's promised service-sector jobs have varied between the developer's own claim of 750 and an earlier local news estimate of about 350 [1][5].
  • Residents said the rezoning process moved quickly and with limited advance notice, including reversal of an earlier six-month tabling of the request [6].
  • Latitude/longitude given here are an estimate from a third-party facility-tracking site (Compute Atlas, s11) rather than an official survey or parcel record; treat the site coordinates as approximate.

Issues are concerns and claims raised by the parties, officials or residents named in the cited sources. They are reported as attributed, not as findings by the Census.

Sources

  1. Gateway Digital Campus
    Gateway Digital Campus (Provident Data Centers) · company
  2. Franklin County Planning and Zoning Approves Diamond Farms Data Center Project
    The Missouri Times · Apr 23, 2026 · news
  3. Data center proposal next to Shaw Nature Reserve has Franklin County gearing up for a battle
    St. Louis Magazine · Jan 17, 2026 · news
  4. County P&Z pushes data center decisions to April after nearly 11-hour meeting
    Columbia Missourian / Missourian.com · Mar 18, 2026 · news
  5. Developer: Franklin County data center would provide $50M in yearly taxes
    Missourian.com · Mar 5, 2026 · news
  6. Franklin County data center projects return to planning commission Tuesday with frustration about process
    First Alert 4 (KMOV) · Mar 14, 2026 · news
  7. Franklin County community members offer more feedback on proposed data center projects
    First Alert 4 (KMOV) · May 18, 2026 · news
  8. Data centers approved by Franklin County Commissioners in Tuesday vote
    First Alert 4 (KMOV) · Sep 15, 2026 · news
  9. Franklin County commissioners on the precipice of data center decisions
    First Alert 4 (KMOV) · Sep 15, 2026 · news
  10. County Commission Agenda and Commission Orders 2026-255 / 2026-256, September 15, 2026
    Franklin County, Missouri (franklinmo.gov) · Sep 15, 2026 · government
  11. Diamond Farms (Gateway Digital Campus) facility record
    Compute Atlas · Aug 24, 2026 · other

Cite this page

Last updated Sep 27, 2026. Figures may change as records are updated — include the date you retrieved them.

APAData Center Census. (2026). Gateway Digital Campus. Retrieved from https://datacentercensus.com/dc/gateway-digital-campus-villa-ridge-mo
MLA“Gateway Digital Campus.” Data Center Census, Sep 27, 2026, https://datacentercensus.com/dc/gateway-digital-campus-villa-ridge-mo.
Linkhttps://datacentercensus.com/dc/gateway-digital-campus-villa-ridge-mo

Republishing a figure or table? Attribute it to Data Center Census with a link to this page. The underlying data is downloadable as JSON and CSV; the press kit has standing figures and contact details.