Meramec Valley Technology Park data center, Pacific, Missouri

Franklin County commissioners voted on Sept. 15, 2026, to approve rezoning for Beltline's Meramec Valley Technology Park, a hyperscale data center planned on the Crooked Creek farm property along Highway O south of Pacific, Missouri, along with a second data center near Villa Ridge. BLE Landholdings, the Beltline Energy subsidiary behind it, had asked to rezone 12 parcels totaling 490 acres around 684 Phelan Road.

The county's planning and zoning commission had voted 5-4 against recommending the Crooked Creek rezoning, even as it backed the Villa Ridge project. Separately, Beltline withdrew a $16 billion, 500-acre rezoning application with the city of Pacific on Aug. 7, 2026, two days after the city passed a one-year data center moratorium. Opponents also raised a possible conflict of interest, since landowner William McLaren sat on the county planning and zoning commission when the application was filed.

"It's just the wrong piece of dirt and the wrong way to go about it," said Gene Elkins, who lives a few hundred yards from the site and depends on a well for water. Elkins said he does not see the vote as the end of it, and that neighbors have "several different things that might help us from a legal standpoint" to slow or stop the project.