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Data centers in St. Louis County, Minnesota: 1 project mapped
Google wants to build a data center campus on a 200-acre site in Hermantown, a city of about 10,000 next to Duluth, and the project still needs City Council approval. In August 2026 Google cut the plan from four buildings to three, totaling 1.66 million square feet. The council is expected to take up the project's revised environmental review this fall; no meeting date has been announced.
For more than a year the project went by the code name "Project Loon." Several Hermantown and St. Louis County officials signed non-disclosure agreements with the developer, Mortenson, and the city said only that a "Fortune 50" company wanted a $650 million data center. The council approved the rezoning on October 20, 2025, at a meeting of nearly 300 people that ran until almost midnight. Google named itself on March 3, 2026. "Google is a heartless corporation run by heartless people," said Jeffrey Donahue of Stop the Hermantown Data Center.
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That group and the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy sued, arguing the city's environmental review called the project "light industrial development". The city has since redone the review to say it is a data center. In an August 25 letter the state Department of Natural Resources said it "does not formally object" but listed "information gaps" and a "lack of defined mitigation," including for nearby wetlands and trout streams. In May the council tabled a vote on a property tax break for Google that could reach $80 million.
The county has no say over the Hermantown site, but about 250 people came to an April 14 hearing on a county zoning rewrite that would have treated data centers as an industrial use. The board took data centers out of the rewrite and started a separate process to define them and set standards. "It's kind of polarizing, and we need to get all the proper information," Commissioner Mike Jugovich said.
Data center projects on record in St. Louis County
Grouped by the town each site sits in. The report above may name projects that have no record here yet.
Hermantown1
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project LoonHermantown | Proposed | Not reported |
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Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.