Project Cayman Data Center, McCall, Louisiana

Near the RiverPlex MegaPark outside Donaldsonville, in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, ONE Nuclear Energy wants to build Project Cayman: a 2.88 gigawatt natural gas power plant, a battery storage system and a data center campus beside them. The parish was already looking for a firm to write a voluntary relocation and buyout plan for homes inside the MegaPark's industrial overlay, which Parish President Clint Cointment described as transitioning the rural area ahead of expected growth. RiverPlex is a 17,000 acre industrial tract with more than 10 miles of Mississippi River frontage in the Modeste area, about nine miles northwest of Donaldsonville, where Hyundai Steel plans a mill of nearly $5.8 billion and CF Industries a roughly $4 billion ammonia plant.

Chris Hansmeyer, the company's chief development officer, told the Baton Rouge Business Report in September that the preferred site covers more than 400 acres and that final locations have not been chosen. He said he first looked at the land about seven years ago while developing solar projects in Louisiana, including Lightsource bp's Oxbow project in Pointe Coupee Parish, and found it a poor fit for solar. Working from industry benchmarks rather than a project estimate, he put the cost at roughly $4 billion to $6.5 billion, with 1,500 to 2,500 construction workers at peak and 125 to 200 permanent jobs. He described the preferred sites as on the edges of the parishes, away from homes, and said the company would design around existing trees, wetlands, drainage and canals. Hansmeyer said he had met landowners and begun talks with Iberville Parish officials, with Ascension officials next and public information meetings from October. "None of this is a forced thing," he said.

The Florida company said on August 31, 2026 that it had signed a binding letter of intent with a "prominent Louisiana landowner group" for control of the site, and did not disclose details about the data center, including the companies involved. The batteries would be rated at 700 megawatts and 2.88 gigawatt hours. The Donaldsonville Chief placed the project in the Donaldsonville area, northeast of SpaceX's announced expansion.

The company has also announced Project Amberjack, two small modular reactors on roughly 750 acres in the same Ascension and Iberville corridor, which would need review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ONE Nuclear, which announced a business combination with Hennessy Capital Investment Corp. VII in August, has other projects in Washington state, Texas and New Mexico.