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California developer Panattoni unveiled conceptual plans Monday for a 2-million-square-foot data center project in the Towns of Beloit and Turtle called "Project Cornmaze."

A new nonprofit group named Rock County Neighbors for Responsible Development is pressing Rock County's municipal governments to enact 18-month moratoriums that would freeze new hyperscale data center proposals here.

City of Janesville staff want the city council to approve another extension of a non-binding agreement with Viridian Partners as negotiations continue over the potential purchase and redevelopment of the former GM/JATCO site.

A group calling itself Rock County Neighbors for Responsible Development is hosting a forum to gather public comment on data centers Thursday night. The forum is slated to roll at 6 p.m. at the 400-seat-capacity conference center at Blackhawk Technical College.

After almost an hour of public comment and nearly 30 minutes of board discussion, Turtle town supervisors decided to hold off for a month deciding on a cost reimbursement agreement with Panattoni on a potential data center project.

Neighborhood watchdog group, SNOW Janesville says new rules embedded in the 300-page, proposed zoning code reboot appear structured in a way that would limit public input during periods when the city's administration and plan commission would vet data center projects.

The Rock County Board of Supervisors has not gone far down any path toward halting data center projects. But a resolution introduced by two supervisors last week seeks an 18-month county moratorium on data center projects — in large part to give county residents more time to learn more about data center projects being proposed here. 

As debate continues over potential data center developments in Janesville and throughout southern Wisconsin, local educators, union leaders and construction workers say the projects could create hundreds of construction jobs, strengthen apprenticeship programs and bring new economic activity

The City of Janesville has responded publicly to emails that surfaced this week showing the city began privately communicating with data center developers who were eyeing the former General Motors site a year before the city had full ownership of the property.