Rob Cleveland, the president and CEO of Grow NELA, says his phone has been blowing up since Meta announced it would build a $10 billion AI data center in Richland Parish, 10/12 Industry Report writes.
Cleveland, whose agency covers a 10-parish area in northeast Louisiana, credits a confluence of factors for pushing the megaproject forward with unprecedented speed.
“Typically, we’ll pursue projects that are one-tenth this size and work on them for three or four years. The fact that this one—at $10 billion—came together in eight months is just incredible.
“It’s an entirely different level of economic development. I was on a call today with a data center developer from the Midwest. I told him how it all came together so quickly, and he didn’t believe me.”
The journey began during Washington Mardi Gras 2024, when Entergy Louisiana approached officials with Louisiana Economic Development about an unnamed developer planning to build a “significant” data center somewhere in the South. The energy provider had been actively marketing the Richland Parish site through its Site Selection Center and Go Entergy platforms, emphasizing its potential for large-scale developments.
Within two weeks, LED, Entergy and Gov. Jeff Landry’s office were mapping out a game plan.