GREENLEAF (NBC 26) — Residents in the Village of Greenleaf are pushing back against a proposed artificial intelligence data center in their Brown County community, saying no amount of money will convince them to sell their homes.
Bill Vandevoort, a fifth-generation resident, received an unexpected phone call last week from a local realtor working with a wealthy client.
He says he was offered $120,000 per acre for his property, but he didn’t learn details about the interested buyer until neighbors received similar calls.
The calls were followed by the delivery of offer packages on their doorstep.
That’s when they learned the purchaser, Cloverleaf Infrastructure was seeking to buy their land for the development of a data center.
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"No matter how many millions you give me, I'm not going to take a dime,” Vandevoort told the realtor when he learned what could be coming. “I would never do that to my people.”
Just down the road from Vandevoort, Kyle Swalheim says he was offered almost $2 million for his property along the East River. He calls his land “a slice of paradise.”
"What is happiness worth to somebody?"Swalheim remarked. He lives in his dream home, surrounded by nature.
“It’s more than what I could sell it for,” Swalheim said of his offer. “But the problem is, I can’t replace it.”
All year long, he and his family enjoy time together outdoors, and Swalheim allows his neighbor to walk through the trails on his property, too.
“I've always wanted something like this,” said Swalheim. “I've found it.I've fought to keep it, and now I have to fight again."
If Cloverleaf acquires its desired acreage in Greenleaf to build an A.I. data center, it will be the first of its kind in Northeast Wisconsin.
The company is seeking hundreds of acres for the project.
"We want to be good stewards of the land as we're developing it for data centers,” explained Aaron Bilyeu, Chief Development Officer for Cloverleaf. “So, you know,kind of 500 acres isreally sort of a sweet spot for us.”
Greenleaf residents worry the center would drain the area's resources, but Bilyeu says that’s not true.
“You’ll hear people say that we’re in Wisconsin because there’s a lot of water. and we can drain Lake Michigan. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Bilyeu stated.
He noted that data centers no longer use water to cool the facility, emphasized that the centers don’t drive up residents’ energy bills and also stressed that Cloverleaf upholds standards set by DarkSky regardinglight pollution.
If a data center comes to Greenleaf, Bilyeu says there would be benefits.
He claims the project would improve the village's infrastructure and create up to 200 full-time jobs—and that’s not all.
"I encourage people to go look at all the high schools in communities with data centers. They all have tremendous amounts of support from the companies," Bilyeu added.
Still, Greenleaf residents say they have more questions than answers about how the facility would affect homes and businesses in the vicinity—and its impact on the local environment.
"This is something that we're not going to be able to ignore," said Katrina Magnuson, who owns LedgeStone Vinyards with her husband, Adam. The business sits across the street of the proposed data center site.
Adam Magnuson says residents understand the importance of data centers in today’s digital landscape, but they don’t want to rush conversations about bringing one to their neighborhood.
"Let's answer the questions. Let's let the residents decide, 'Is this what we want in our community?' Because it's not going to stop in Greenleaf," he said.
Greenleaf Village Board members tell NBC 26 they weren't made aware of the property proposals until a Planning Commission meeting January 5.
Board members say they have no comment on the matter at this time.
The Village Board will meet again January 14 at 5:30 pm, and discussion of the proposals is on the meeting agenda.
