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Updated April 6, 2026, at 6:02 p.m.
A new data center is not in Lansing’s immediate future.
A developer is withdrawing its application to purchase and rezone a parcel of city land for a data center, which the Lansing City Council was expected to vote on Monday night.
Deep Green CEO Mark Lee notified Lansing Mayor Andy Schor and City Council members that the company was withdrawing its application Monday afternoon, an email obtained by WKAR News shows.
The company did not provide an explanation in the email.
Lansing City Council President Peter Spadafore said in a Facebook post that votes on the rezoning and the sale of city land to the company will not take place at Monday’s meeting as had been planned.
“What this means: the data center proposal downtown will not move forward,” Spadafore said.
The development was estimated to generate nearly $2 million in annual revenue for the city.
Lansing Mayor Andy Schor, who released a letter in support of the development last week, said in a statement that he was “encouraged about new and sustained revenues” the data center would have provided but acknowledged “concerns raised by some members of the Lansing public.”
The proposal was met with mixed reactions from Lansing residents during a public hearing at the Lansing City Council’s March 23 meeting.
Lansing Fire Commissioner Steve Purchase, who is communications director for the Northern Midwest Regional Council of Carpenters, said the data center would provide a valuable trade-off by developing an underutilized parcel of land and providing valuable community benefits.
He said Deep Green’s proposal is not as large as data centers being considered in communities like Howell and Saline, and it is more in line with the size of other data centers already operating in the Lansing area.
“We’re not talking about putting a hyperscale data center in the middle of our downtown,” Purchase said. “We’re talking about an appropriately sized, responsibly designed project that would deliver tangible community benefits.”
But Michigan State University student Henry Jerred said other types of developments would be a better fit for the land.
“This parcel of land has barely been marketed, and Lansing is brimming with better alternatives for its development,” Jerred said. “A future dominated by AI and tech is only inevitable if we let it be, and right now, we have a chance to put our foot down and build something better.”
Some speakers suggested using the land for a new housing development. But officials said the data center was the only active proposal for the site.
Schor said in a statement he will “keep fighting for economic investments of all types.”
“As this property will remain empty parking lots, I ask all those who suggested housing on these parcels to provide their proposals for development into housing,” Schor said. “I agree that would be great for this area, and I look forward to seeing those proposals and financing to make this happen.”
The UK-based company planned to provide heat generated by the 24-megawatt data center site to the Lansing Board of Water and Light’s hot water system for free, in addition to donating $120,000 annually to Pennies for Power to help customers who are struggling to pay their utility bills.
BWL General Manager Dick Peffley said in a statement that the BWL “continues to stay focused on providing safe, reliable and affordable utility services while supporting the community we serve.”
Deep Green CEO Mark Lee said in a statement that the company’s “commitment to building data centers the right way has never been stronger.”
“We are confident that Michigan is a place that values responsible development, and we continue to work with local partners and communities in the region,” Lee said. "We are fully energized in our mission to build the first data center of its kind in the United States, one that delivers advanced computing power while capturing and reusing waste heat for the benefit of the communities where we operate.”
