Real estate developer Panattoni Development has assumed control of a Meta-backed proposal to construct a 430-acre data center campus spanning the towns of Beloit and Turtle in southern Wisconsin, as community resistance to the project continues to grow.

Developer Transition at Project Cornmaze

The project, known as Project Cornmaze, was previously set to be developed under the name Cambrin LLC, an entity that shares the same name and email address listed in documents connected to Meta's confirmed data center in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.

Town of Beloit Administrator John Malizio confirmed to the Beloit Daily News last Friday that Panattoni had reached out to notify local officials that the company was taking over the project.

Panattoni appears to have established two websites related to the data center, though neither was accessible at the time of reporting.

The property is currently owned by Rock Road Companies Inc, a company based in Janesville, Wisconsin. A pre-development agreement for the site has been under negotiation since June 2025. Beloit sits on the border between Wisconsin and Illinois in Rock County.

Who Is Panattoni?

Founded in 1986 as an industrial real estate firm, Panattoni Development has developed approximately 625 million square feet of office, logistics, and industrial space in the United States alone.

In August 2024, the company announced it would begin developing data centers, setting a target to develop one gigawatt of data center capacity by 2030.

Panattoni currently has 21 active data center projects.

The company also operates a European division, which established its own data center team in July 2025 after recruiting several former staffers from Colt Data Center Services.

Local Opposition Intensifies

The data center proposal has drawn significant pushback from residents across both Beloit and Turtle. A public Facebook group called "No Beloit Data Center" had amassed around 2,700 members at the time of reporting.

A widely circulated flyer connected to the opposition movement calls on residents to urge the state governor to issue a moratorium on data center construction in Wisconsin, and to pressure county and local authorities to ban non-disclosure agreements (NDA) between developers and government bodies.

The NDA concern reflects a broader pattern seen in data center disputes across the country, where residents and advocacy groups have raised alarms about the lack of transparency in early-stage negotiations between large technology infrastructure developers and local governments.