The Pikeville proposal, straight from the documents

• On April 20, 2026, the City of Pikeville signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with MD Squared Power LLC, a Lexington-based data center and digital infrastructure developer. The city announced it publicly on June 5, 2026 and posted the full MOU online.¹³
• The MOU starts a 120-day exclusive negotiation window — the city and developer talk only to each other while deciding whether a final Development Agreement makes sense. Either side can walk away at the end with no penalty, and the window can be extended by mutual agreement.¹
• No land has been transferred. No terms have been agreed to. The city states it has signed no non-disclosure agreement and was not asked to.¹
• The proposed site is the city-owned Kentucky Enterprise Industrial Park — a 190-acre park developed over more than a decade with city investment plus state and federal grants, currently home to Appalachian Tank and Wrightway Concrete, with a state-certified Build-Ready site completed in 2024.¹ (See the map page for where the park sits and how far the nearest homes are.)

According to the city, the developer was drawn by three things: the quality of the industrial park’s infrastructure, the state-certified Build-Ready site with its completed building pad, and — critically — existing power capacity within the park that could serve the initial phase without building new transmission lines. That means the project could reach operation faster here than at sites needing new transmission.²

That same fact is at the center of the local debate: the park and its power capacity were built with public money over more than a decade, and level, buildable land is genuinely scarce in Eastern Kentucky. The city frames the open question the same way many residents do — is this use of those assets, on what terms, the right decision?²

• Land use:whether a data center is the right use for the park, how it would affect the park’s ability to serve other industrial employers, and what realistic alternatives exist — evaluated by independent advisors, not the developer’s own assessment.²
• Economics:an independent economic analysis of whether the developer’s job and investment projections match what comparable projects have actually delivered elsewhere.²
• Electric rates:Kentucky Power’s rates are set by the Kentucky Public Service Commission — the city can’t override that — but the city says it is examining what a Development Agreement can do to ensure the cost of serving the facility doesn’t fall on existing residential and commercial customers. (Our Power & Rates page explains how this works in detail.)²
• Water:the city operates its own municipal water system, drawing from the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River, and says its approved withdrawal permit capacity is well above the project’s described needs. It is having the developer’s usage projections independently verified anyway. (See our Water page for how different cooling designs change the picture.)²
• Noise and air quality: the city is examining the noise and air-quality implications of backup power systems, which are tested on a regular schedule. (See our Noise and Health pages.)²
• Taxes:the city says it will not reduce or eliminate local tax revenues as an incentive. Kentucky’s state-level data center incentive operates through state sales tax treatment and doesn’t affect local government revenue.²
• Future ownership:ensuring commitments are tied to the land and the use — so they can’t be erased if the property is sold or the developer restructures.²

MD Squared Power LLC is described in the city’s documents as a Lexington, Kentucky-based development company focused on data centers and digital infrastructure. Its role as a developer is to identify sites, develop infrastructure, and bring in an end user (the company that would actually operate computing inside the facility). As of the June 2026 announcement, no end user had been finalized — that negotiation was ongoing.²

For the record: local reporting notes the LLC is young — Kentucky business filings show it was organized in 2024 and took the “MD Squared Power” name in February 2026; its managing member, Ben DeVary of Lexington, signed the MOU.⁷⁴³That isn’t unusual for a project-specific development entity, but it is part of why the city’s independent review of the developer’s capacity to deliver — and protections that survive any future sale — matter.²

1. The City Commission is working toward authorizing independent legal counsel (an attorney experienced in data center development agreements) and an independent economic and site analysis.¹
2. No final Development Agreement will be considered until that independent review is complete.¹
3. Before any vote, the complete terms of any agreement will be made public. The city commits that no vote happens before the community can see exactly what is being considered.²