By Brian Roebke
Editor
The greater Greenleaf community has responded with intense disdain to reports that a local realtor has been visiting property owners seeking their interest in selling their properties, with the reason the undisclosed reason for purchasing the properties being the construction of a data center in the village, the first in Northeast Wisconsin.
The idea did appear to come out of nowhere, but Village President Bonnie Crossman reported a few months ago a company contacted her about the village’s interest. When she brought up the idea at a village board meeting, there was a quick “no” reaction from board members.
Apparently Baird Creek DevCo LLC was undeterred by that and went ahead and solicited landowners.
The issued has spawned a Facebook group, Stop the Greenleaf Data Center, that’s “a centralized group for all things regarding the Data Center that is being proposed in Greenleaf. A place for us to communicate and organize against this unwanted development.”
People in the group have made hundreds if not thousands of comments regarding the issue, which also led to a public information meeting on Monday evening at Gnarly Cedar Brewery in Wrights-town. LedgeStone Vineyard owners Adam and Katrina Magnuson believe a data center would be a death sentence for all the things they hold dear in Greenleaf.
The issue is second on the agenda for the village board meeting that’s scheduled for tonight at 5:30 p.m. at the Greenleaf Village Hall. As a discussion item, there will not be a vote on anything related to the data center. The legal means of the local municipality stopping the development are somewhat murky. It appears the village may only regulate the data center but there is nothing in the village ordinances directly pertaining to data centers.
It appears the best way to stop the development is for property owners to not sell their land to Baird Creek DevCo LLC. Without land, there is no development.
Reportedly around 25 adjoining properties are involved in the proposal that runs west of Highway 32/57, north of Fair Road, and east of the creek that leads to the East River to Mallard Road on the north totaling around 500 acres.
Farmland is the biggest portion of the area, with the remainder being residential agriculture.
Purchase offers ranged from $50,000-$120,000 per acre.
Village resident Bill Vande Voort spoke at the village/town planning commission meeting on Monday, Jan. 5, speaking in the business from the floor portion of the meeting.
“We as landowners and citizens want to get on an agenda and try to talk to the board as far as what our opinions are on this,” he said. “If you know anything about these large tracts of land either being sold already or in the process of being sold, and what your opinion’s going to be on having something like that in our community.”
Vande Voort said they want to learn answers to questions they have if the board knows any answers but as of this meeting, they did not.
“We understand they may have already gotten a large tract but we want to take and try to stop that and we don’t want anything to do with that part of it,” he said.
According to an information sheet distributed at the planning commission meeting, Baird Creek DevCo LLC is registered as a Wisconsin Foreign LLC with domestic incorporation in Delaware with an address in a 37-story building in Houston, Texas.
It was incorporated in August with an agent being Cogency Global, Inc. with an address in Dover.
The company is said to be a real estate development firm targeting projects like land acquisition, zoning, and development planning.
The information sheet said Delaware is considered a popular state for forming LLCs because of business friendly laws that are well developed and provide a flexible corporate law system, a specialized court system that handles disputes without juries, using judges who specialize in corporate law, leading to faster, expert decisions.
In addition, LLC privacy laws in Delaware do not require LLCs to give member names.
Delaware has tax benefits that include no state income tax for companies that operate outside of Delaware, no sales tax, and low franchise taxes compared to other states.
Lastly, the “Blue Hen” state allows an easy formation that makes the registration process quicker, often completed within a day.
Allegedly the developer’s name listed on the land purchase offers is Applied Digital Corp.
“I told them I don’t care what you’re going to give me, I’m not going to do it,” Vande Voort said.
Several property owners in the area acknowledge they are being offered considerable sums of money for their land, but do not feel they can replicate what they have presently on another site.
Kyle Swalheim was offered almost $2 million for his property by Cloverleaf Infrastructure.
The village’s comprehensive plan lists the area as agriculture.
“I think we have to find out what they’re proposing and then go from there,” Town Chairman Bill Verbeten said.
He added he didn’t care either way it goes but the town had Greenleaf incorporated so they wouldn’t have to deal with the big businesses coming from the west side of the town.
