Local entrepreneur pitches small-scale data centers for Madison County, emphasizing reuse of vacant buildings

Clint Hyde presented a plan to the Madison County Economic Development Committee to build small-scale, incremental data centers by repurposing vacant county buildings such as the former Emmylou’s at Madison Plaza. Hyde said the site currently has about 1 megawatt of available power and that the project’s initial target would be about 2 megawatts with transformer upgrades as needed. "If they've got a meg now, you know what? Could get halfway done without touching anything at all," Hyde said.

Hyde urged reuse over new construction, saying existing space and power near Route 29 and available dark fiber make the county suitable for a modest approach. He described a possible layout for an 8,000-square-foot building with six rows of server racks, estimating roughly 120–125 racks in that footprint. "My power estimate is that you want about 10 kilowatts per rack," he said, adding that a row of 20 racks would be about 200 kilowatts.

Hyde provided revenue and cost figures and noted recent supply-chain changes that have raised capital costs: he estimated about $10,000 in gross revenue per month per rack and said a fully populated rack that once cost about $50,000 now can approach $100,000. "So we're talking for 6 row… $10,000,000 worth of CapEx," Hyde said, while stressing the model could be built incrementally rather than all at once.

On reliability and operations, Hyde said operators would need backup generators and local redundancy because Rural Electric Cooperative service is not perfectly reliable. He recommended natural-gas tank generators over diesel and said battery backup could bridge short outages. Hyde also cautioned against water-dependent cooling in Madison, given recent dry conditions.

Committee members asked practical questions about siting, fiber access and the cost of bringing fiber to off-corridor sites. Hyde said proximity to Route 29 reduces fiber-extension costs (he estimated roughly $1,000 per mile as a low-end figure in discussion) and noted that extending fiber long distances can be expensive. The chair and staff said county planners and economic development staff will continue to work with Hyde and follow up on rezoning and site-plan needs.

The presentation ended with the committee expressing interest in further exploration and staff follow-up. The meeting record shows the committee adopted the meeting agenda at the start and adjourned after the presentations.