Kearney, Nebraska, to vote on a 368 MW data center that would replace a MARA Holdings bitcoin mine

Project Horizon would add about 268 megawatts of new power demand on top of 100 megawatts of capacity that already exists at a bitcoin mine on the adjoining parcel. The mine would be shut down and built over. The city council still has to approve the plan after Friday's vote.

The Kearney, Nebraska, planning commission votes Friday, Aug. 21, on a data center campus at 4807 Antelope Avenue. The project would be built in three phases. At full build-out it would draw 368 megawatts of electricity and take over the bitcoin mining site beside it.

For scale: Kearney's peak energy use was described as around 110 megawatts at the mine's groundbreaking. That figure comes from Nebraska Public Power District, relayed in a December 2019 write-up by Commonwealth Electric of Greater Nebraska, the electrical contractor on that build. It is a seven-year-old number and the city has grown since. Even so, the finished campus would need roughly three times it.

The applicants are Craig Bennett of Miller & Associates Consulting Engineers, the Kearney firm acting as agent, and Worldwide Mission Critical of Chantilly, Virginia. The technical memos come from Horizon 1 Kearney Owner, LP. The drawing set is titled Project Horizon. DLR Group is the architect and handles mechanical, electrical, structural, interiors, and telecom and security design. Miller & Associates is the civil engineer. FCL Builders of Itasca, Illinois, is listed as the general contractor.

Yes, It Is a Bitcoin Mine, and Yes, the Mining Ends

The permit file never uses the word bitcoin. It says "cryptocurrency mining" throughout. But the operator says it plainly. MARA Holdings — the company that was named Marathon Digital Holdings until it rebranded in 2024 — lists Kearney on its operations page as a site it fully owns and operates. MARA calls it "one of Nebraska's largest Bitcoin mining data centers," situated near a solar farm and primarily air-cooled. That matches the permit file, which shows a solar farm on the south edge of the property. MARA lists the site's hashrate at 5.5 exahashes per second, though the figures on that page carry an unfilled "As of MM/DD/YYYY" placeholder, so they are undated.

The paper trail lines up. Three parties are listed as owners of record on the permit: the City of Kearney, Worldwide Mission Critical, and Compute North NE05, LLC, which now goes by GC Data Center Kearney, LLC. Every contact the utility lists for GC Data Center Kearney uses a Marathon Digital Holdings email address, at the same Hallandale Beach, Florida, address MARA gives on its own site.

On whether the mining actually stops, the file is direct. The staff memo: "Following completion of phase one, the existing Cryptocurrency mining facility will be decommissioned." The sound consultant, independently: "It is our understanding that this facility will be decommissioned as part of this project." Nothing anywhere in the file contemplates mining continuing. The replacement runs three ways — the mine's 100 megawatts is reassigned to Phase 1, its parcel is built over in Phase 3, and the operation itself is shut down.

Two caveats on that. The shutdown is tied to Phase 1 finishing, and the permit expires if nothing is built within two years, so a stalled project leaves the mine running. And while the draft code makes decommissioning the owner's responsibility under state statute, the file contains no decommissioning plan and no financial assurance for it.

There is a larger pattern here. In February 2026, MARA announced a strategic agreement with Starwood Capital Group and its data center platform, Starwood Digital Ventures. In a follow-up explainer in March, MARA said it is "converting and expanding select MARA sites into data center campuses" for enterprise, hyperscale and AI/HPC customers. MARA contributes power-rich sites and "controls project commitments." SDV leads design, development, tenant sourcing, construction and operations. MARA holds an option to invest up to 50% in joint venture projects. MARA's blog put initial capacity at more than 1 gigawatt with a roadmap that "could extend beyond 2.5 GW"; its press release said approximately 1 gigawatt near-term. Permitting was already underway, "with applications submitted in select markets."

MARA also explained why mining comes first. Bitcoin mining earns revenue "with no tenants, no leases, and no sales cycle," so it pays for a powered site while the company lines up customers. "When a new workload is ready to come online, mining can be shut down to free capacity," MARA wrote. The Kearney permit follows that sequence.

But the connection stops short of proof. MARA has not publicly named Kearney as a conversion site — its operations page still lists it as an active mine. The permit file never mentions Starwood and never says who owns Horizon 1 Kearney Owner, LP. Worldwide Mission Critical does display an SDV logo in its website footer, though the firm makes no written claim about the relationship. The ownership chain behind the applicant is not spelled out in the public file.

The Site

The land is Lot 1 of Tech One Third Subdivision and Lot 1 of Tech One Fifth Subdivision in Buffalo County. It sits east of Antelope Avenue and south of Tech One Boulevard and Global Drive. The property is outside Kearney's city limits but within two miles of them, so the city still controls zoning there. It is zoned BP, Business Park, where a data center is allowed only with a conditional use permit.

The land is part of TechoNE Crossing, spelled Tech One Crossing in older council records. The staff memo calls it a "shovel-ready" site, built to attract light manufacturing, data centers and office parks. To the north is an office and vacant land. The mine is east. A solar farm is south. Farmland lies west, across Antelope Avenue. Staff say the state once identified the site as a preferred spot for data centers.

One date in the file does not add up. The staff memo says the mining property was "initially built in 2017." But the city council did not approve the development agreement for that parcel until June 2019, and Commonwealth Electric announced its contract for the build in December 2019. The 2017 date is worth asking about.

The sound consultant reports the nearest homes are more than 2,000 feet from any proposed building.

Power: 268 Megawatts New, 100 Megawatts Reused

The applicant told the city the campus will need 368 megawatts once fully built. Of that, 100 megawatts of capacity already exists on the mine parcel, which is inside the permit area. It would be shifted over from the mining operation to run Phase 1. The other 268 megawatts is new demand, needed for Phases 2 and 3. These three numbers appear only in the staff memo. There is no separate power study in the file.

That 100 megawatts traces back to how the mine was built. Commonwealth described the 2019 project as small modular buildings made offsite and trucked in, each about the size of a large shipping container, each needing 2.5 megawatts. The job included running a 35 kV service from an NPPD substation. "When all is complete, the site could require 100 MW of power," the contractor wrote. It also said the site would be able to handle crypto mining, blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The city council heard smaller numbers at the time. In June 2019, City Attorney Michael Tye told members the operation would use up to 20 megawatts, with top capacity of 30 megawatts.

An interconnection agreement covers the existing capacity. It runs between Nebraska Public Power District and GC Data Center Kearney, LLC, and is dated effective March 1, 2026. It allows up to 100 MVA of load, depending on equipment ratings. It also allows just one 100 MVA transformer at the utility substation, with no backup transformer. If a backup is ever required, the customer has to follow the utility's transmission extension policy. The copy filed with the application is not signed. Both signature blocks are blank.

For the new load, staff say the applicant has filed the required New Load Application with the utility and posted the required financial security. The file lists three supporting exhibits:

• A signed memorandum of understanding
• A signed "GSDA" — an abbreviation the file uses once and never spells out
• A wire confirmation showing the security deposits were paid

All three appear as headings with no documents behind them. The dollar amount of the security is never stated.

The applicant says no on-site power plant and no battery storage will feed the data center. Generators and batteries are for backup during outages only.

Water: A Closed Loop, With Irrigation the Biggest Use

The cooling system is a closed loop. Water circulates through chilled-water piping and is not used up. There are 120 air-cooled chillers, 60 per building. During normal operation, the cooling system consumes no water at all. Keith Miller, a mechanical engineer at DLR Group, prepared the water and wastewater study, dated Aug. 13.

With one building running, the site would use 455,600 gallons a year, or 1,250 gallons a day. With two buildings, that doubles to 911,200 gallons a year, or 2,500 gallons a day. The breakdown: 44.9% for plumbing, 43.3% for adding humidity to the data halls eight months a year, and 11.9% for cooling. That cooling figure is not makeup water for the loop. It is washing the chiller coils, six times a year across 120 chillers.

Filling the loop is a one-time event. Each fill takes 837,500 gallons. The study lists four fills totaling 3.35 million gallons, though its table labels two of them "Building 2 – 2nd turnover," which looks like a typo. A contractor would fill the system through a three-inch pipe at roughly 250 gallons per minute. The study says that takes about 44 hours. At that rate, an 837,500-gallon fill would actually run closer to 56 hours.

Watering the landscaping would use more water than running the facility. Conventional irrigation on 2.5 landscaped acres over a 22-week growing season comes to about 2,240,073 gallons a year. That is more than double what the buildings themselves would use. The applicant says it usually plants native or climate-adapted species that need no permanent irrigation, which would drop that number to about zero. The current landscape plan reflects what the city ordinance requires. The study says the approach can be looked at again if the city wants lower water use.

Peak demand hits 21,014 gallons on a single day. That is a day when the sprinklers run, the humidifiers are on, and crews wash chiller coils. The highest instant demand is 323 gallons per minute.

Routine wastewater is entirely domestic — 560 gallons a day with one building, 1,120 with two. That works out to 204,500 and 409,000 gallons a year. Water used to wash chiller coils drains to the storm sewer. The one-time flush before the glycol fill goes to the sanitary sewer, at a rate coordinated with the city. The closed loop produces no blowdown, and humidity water evaporates, so there is no cooling wastewater stream. Glycol and rust inhibitor stay inside the loop. If the loop ever has to be drained, a specialty vendor hauls the fluid away.

The study concludes no pretreatment permit is needed. Under state rule Title 119, a facility needs one only in three cases: if it is a listed industry, if it discharges 25,000 gallons a day or more of process wastewater, or if it sends 5% or more of the treatment plant's load. This project meets none of those.

At 911,200 gallons a year with two buildings, the project also falls under the 25-million-gallon yearly threshold in the proposed city code. Crossing that line would trigger extra requirements. Those include proving a water source, providing offsets, and getting review by the Central Platte Natural Resources District or the state.

Development Schedule

The permit covers three phases.

Phase 1 goes on the northern part of the site. It includes an office building, a data center building, and fenced equipment yards north and south of it. Phase 1 also brings:

• Water and sewer hookups to existing lines in Antelope Avenue
• A lift station
• A stormwater detention cell in the southeast corner
• Parking along the north side
• A guardhouse controlling the Antelope Avenue entrance
• A second access to Tech One Boulevard for emergency vehicles
• A security fence around the whole property
• All required street trees

The plans call for three more items. One is a 10-foot irrigated buffer strip along Antelope Avenue, Tech One Boulevard and Global Drive. Another is sidewalks on Tech One Boulevard and Global Drive. The third is a hike-bike trail along Antelope Avenue. The memo does not say which phase those fall in.

Phase 2 adds a second building south of the first. It mirrors Building 1 and carries identical equipment.

Phase 3 extends both buildings east onto the mining property. The mine gets decommissioned once Phase 1 is finished.

The only construction dates anywhere in the file come from the water study's commissioning schedule. Building 1 has a first turnover in Q4 2027 and a second in Q1 2028. Building 2's turnovers are listed as TBD, sometime between 2028 and 2030.

At full build-out, a loop driveway connects every building.

Sound

Cavanaugh Tocci Associates of Sudbury, Massachusetts, wrote the sound study. It is dated Aug. 13 and marked Revision 2. The author, Douglas Bell, is a senior principal and a former president of the firm. Crews ran continuous sound monitors at three spots from June 8 to June 12. Two measured background noise near homes. The third measured the cryptocurrency mine itself, and its readings were combined with nine handheld measurements taken around that facility. The modeling used CadnaA software under the ISO 9613-2 standard.

The limit is 55 dBA, measured as a day-night average at the property line. After Phase 1, modeled property-line readings run 50 to 53 dBA. After Phase 2, they run 52 to 54 dBA, with the west and northwest boundaries tied at the high end. In the generator-maintenance scenario, the northwest property line hits 55 dBA — exactly the limit, with no margin.

At the four nearest homes, modeled levels run 30 to 40 dBA after Phase 1 and 33 to 45 dBA after Phase 2. The study says facility noise during normal operation should be equal to or lower than what the cryptocurrency mine already produces. Its own Table 3 is more mixed. At the south and west home locations, the two-building build-out models at 45 dBA against 41 dBA attributed to the mine — four decibels louder. The north and east locations do come in below the mine.

Here is what the model counts in each building:

• 60 air-cooled chillers, capped at 75% capacity by day and 60% at night
• 54 "ePods" with their own ventilation, running at 50%. Each has two ground-mounted dry coolers and two wall-mounted control units.
• 54 emergency generators. Each sits in a sound enclosure with exhaust silencers, rated at 65 dBA from 50 feet away.

The screening numbers in the file do not match. The staff memo and the drawings describe screen walls 55 feet tall. The sound model assumes 50 feet. That gap matters, because the modeled margin at the northwest property line is already zero in the maintenance case.

The study only covers two buildings in two phases. Because Phase 3 extends both buildings, staff say another sound study may be required when that phase begins. The code also requires a follow-up sound test within 90 days of the plant going live, and the city can hire its own reviewer to check the work, at the applicant's expense.

Generators, Fuel and Air Permits

Full build-out allows up to 108 emergency standby generators, 54 per building, running on ultra-low-sulfur diesel. The applicant's memo does not list a generator size. The 3-megawatt figure comes only from the sound model.

There are no separate fuel tanks on the site. Each generator has its own double-walled tank built into its base, with leak detection wired to the generator control panel, spill containment at the fill point, and overfill protection. Every generator sits inside the screened equipment yard and meets required setbacks.

The applicant has hired an air quality consultant and says permitting is underway, with all permits in hand before any generator runs. Generators are limited to testing, maintenance, outages and emergencies. The sound study assumes each one runs about 20 minutes a month for testing, and models a maintenance condition happening nine hours a month, daytime only.

Design and Screening

The proposed code requires that 35% of any street-facing wall be masonry. It lists brick, split-faced concrete block, building stone and simulated stone, plus anything else the Chief Building Official approves in advance. The drawings show that 35% delivered as architectural metal, and the drawing notes say the metals will be pre-approved by the authority having jurisdiction before the permit is issued. Staff conclude the buildings will meet the requirement. The approval itself is a permit-stage step and is not in the file.

Screening reaches 55 feet tall, against a 12-foot code minimum. Two systems do the work: an acoustic screen with a vertical relief pattern and solid backing, colored green, and an acoustic screen with a wood look and vertical battens. Screening wraps the entire equipment yard. Buildings meet the 100-foot setback from property lines. A 50-foot landscaped buffer is provided. The required 1,000 feet between noise-making equipment and homes or residential zoning is met at full build-out.

The Five Conditions

1. Any change in the applicant or in property ownership, including site or buildings, must be reported to Development Services within 30 days.
2. An inventory of chemicals, batteries and hazardous materials, listing where each sits on the site, must be filed before the certificate of occupancy and every year after.
3. The applicant and owner cover the city against accidents, injuries, losses, claims or damages tied to the permit.
4. The applicant and owner follow all applicable city, state and federal law.
5. The permit expires if the project is abandoned, or if no construction or occupancy happens within two years. It can be revoked for noncompliance. The city keeps its enforcement powers under state statute 19-913.

The applicant has agreed to all five. Otherwise the permit runs indefinitely, as long as the operator stays in compliance.

As of the date the staff memo was published, the city had received no calls or emails for or against the permit.

The Data Center Rules Are Still a Draft

The data center standards this application is judged against are not law yet. The sound study describes Section 46-105 of the city code as a section that "will be amended to include noise regulations specific to data centers." The rules the city circulated are labeled draft proposed amendments. They cover Chapters 13, 14, 46 and 49 of the Unified Land Development Ordinance. So the commission is applying standards the city has not yet adopted.

Earlier Deals at the Site Set Job and Power Terms

In June 2019, the council approved Resolution No. 2019-97. It was an agreement among the City of Kearney, the Economic Development Council of Buffalo County, Inc., and Compute North NE05, LLC, covering five acres at Tech One Crossing. Compute North agreed to create at least 10 jobs with benefits within 36 months and keep them for two years. City Attorney Michael Tye said the city's lease rate would be adjusted to reflect the operation's power use. Mayor Stanley Clouse abstained from the vote.

In November 2023, the council approved Resolution No. 2023-165, an amended and restated agreement among the city, the development council and GC Data Center Kearney, LLC, reflecting the change in ownership.

The current permit file contains no job count, no capital investment figure, and no tax projection.

What to Watch

• The city council vote. Friday's planning commission action is only the first of two. Under the draft code, a data center permit needs both bodies.
• Whether the code gets adopted first. The data center standards are still labeled draft amendments to Chapters 13, 14, 46 and 49. The commission is judging this application against rules the city has not passed.
• The three missing power exhibits. The signed memorandum of understanding, the signed "GSDA," and the wire confirmation for the security deposits are all listed as headings with nothing attached. They would show the dollar amount of the financial security backing 268 megawatts of new load.
• A signed interconnection agreement. The copy in the file has two blank signature blocks.
• The screen wall height. The memo and drawings say 55 feet. The sound model assumes 50. The modeled margin at the northwest property line is already zero during generator maintenance, so the gap matters.
• The construction plan. The draft code requires one before any dirt moves, covering timelines, contractor counts at peak, traffic, dust and site restoration. It is not in the file.
• Air permits. Up to 108 diesel generators need EPA and state clearance. The applicant says permitting is "in development."
• Proof the mine actually comes down. Decommissioning is tied to Phase 1 finishing, and the file contains no decommissioning plan and no financial assurance. The 90-day post-construction sound test is the other checkpoint, along with any peer review the city orders.
• Who is really behind Horizon 1 Kearney Owner, LP. If MARA and Starwood Digital Ventures are the parties, neither the permit file nor MARA's public materials says so yet.

Key Figures