Three cities, one pattern
As of May 2026, Google has three publicly identified data center projects in Arkansas. None of them is operating yet. All three appeared in regulatory filings within roughly twelve months of each other. According to a tip Brooke at Anthropocene Alliance flagged to us on May 10, 2026, the applications and the submitter on the filings are identical across the three projects -- meaning the same legal-and-tax template is being deployed town by town.
The three projects:
- Conway, Faulkner County: 336 acres rezoned in April 2026 near Lollie Road; 300,000 square feet; 1 billion dollars; operator not officially announced but identified by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as Google. A community town hall is scheduled for Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at Conway City Hall.
- Port of Little Rock, Pulaski County: 1 billion dollar campus disclosed by Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in January 2026; 100 MW capacity reported. Status: proposed.
- West Memphis, Crittenden County: 600 MW campus, status under construction.
At each site, the early-public-disclosure framing is similar: a generic real-estate or industrial-recruitment description first, an unnamed tenant, rezoning or annexation, and Google's role only confirmed by independent reporting after the local zoning step has cleared.
The application pattern Brooke flagged
The reason Anthropocene Alliance's outreach deserves attention is that they are a national 501(c)(3) coalition that backbones community fights in many states. When their researchers see the same boilerplate showing up across multiple filings under different shell names, that is a strong signal -- not a one-off coincidence. The tip we received was specific: the Conway filing's applications and submitter are identical to the Little Rock filing. The same playbook, rerun.
What that suggests, from a community-organizing standpoint, is that the right framing in Arkansas is not site-by-site negotiation. The right framing is: this is a coordinated rollout. Concessions a town gives Google in Conway are concessions every neighboring town's developer will cite as the new floor. A win in one town will compound across the three. A loss will compound the other direction.
Conway: the next public moment
The Conway town hall is scheduled for Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at 5:00 PM at Conway City Hall (1111 Main Street). It is organized by the Faulkner County League of Women Voters. Confirmed speakers include Brad Lacy, president of the Conway Development Corporation. Community questions raised at prior public meetings, per the Arkansas Times, center on water sustainability, electricity, economic-impact reality-check, and transparency about which company is actually behind the project.
The Conway City Council approved rezoning, annexation, and consolidation of the 336-acre Lollie Road site in April 2026. The land is now zoned for the development. The May 12 town hall is the structured public-comment moment between approval and groundbreaking. Anyone in Faulkner County watching the project should attend.
Little Rock and West Memphis, in the same template
Port of Little Rock (Pulaski County): the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette confirmed Google as the operator in January 2026. The project sits on a 1 billion dollar investment and 100 MW of disclosed capacity. Status: proposed. The Pulaski County and City of Little Rock approvals followed a similar arc to Conway's: unnamed inbound interest, rezoning and recruitment-authority engagement, late confirmation of the operator's identity.
West Memphis (Crittenden County): the most advanced of the three sites. Capacity 600 MW. Status: under construction. West Memphis is on the Tennessee border, sits at the convergence of major interstates (I-40, I-55), and has long-standing industrial recruitment infrastructure. It is the proof point Google's recruiters are using for the smaller Conway and Little Rock projects.
All three projects appear on the PoweredByWho map. The Conway dossier was added May 10, 2026 based on Brooke's tip; the Little Rock and West Memphis dossiers were on file prior.
What to watch
1. The Conway May 12 town hall. The next public-comment moment. Residents watching the project should attend, document the developer's claims about water and electricity, and compare them against what Pulaski County residents heard in January.
2. The application fingerprint. Brooke's specific intelligence -- identical applications and submitter -- is the kind of cross-site evidence that becomes valuable when reviewed by a journalist with FOIA access in Arkansas. If you are a reporter, the comparison between the Conway and Little Rock filings is worth requesting.
3. Tax incentives at each site. Conway, Little Rock, and West Memphis are likely operating under different state and local tax abatement structures. Comparing the per-MW or per-dollar-invested public subsidy across the three would reveal whether Google is paying a premium in any one location -- and whether Conway's concessions are setting a regional floor.
4. Power and water sourcing. Arkansas's three Google projects rely on different utilities (Entergy Arkansas for most of the state) and different watersheds (Arkansas River basin for Conway, Mississippi River for West Memphis). Cross-site water and grid analysis is the kind of thing a state-level news desk can do well, and a federal regulator like FERC will eventually weigh in on.
5. The Coalition for Responsible Data Center Development's April 2026 opposition census flagged Arkansas as a state with growing community-group activity. If the May 12 Conway town hall expands the network in Faulkner County, watch for cross-coordination with Pulaski and Crittenden organizers.
We track all three Arkansas projects on the map. If you have evidence about any of the three -- developer correspondence, ZIP-level utility filings, county commission minutes -- send a tip. The receipts compound the more communities have access to them.