Stillwater Development withdraws 1.25 GW data center application in Lovejoy, Georgia, reverting to residential plan

Stillwater Development withdrew its Special Administrative Permit application for the Stillwater Technology Park in Lovejoy, Georgia, on 6 August 2026, ending plans for a campus that documents indicated could have drawn 1.25 GW of grid capacity from Central Georgia EMC^[1]. The city council acknowledged the withdrawal at a special called meeting the same day. The developer will instead pursue residential development on the site - a use that had been planned for the property before the data center proposal emerged^[1].

What was proposed

The Stillwater Technology Park was a large-scale campus on Panhandle Road in Lovejoy, a city of roughly 10,000 people in Clayton County, about 24 miles south of Atlanta^[1]. Key figures from planning documents:

• Up to 15 data center buildings totalling 3.465 million square feet
• Two on-site substations
• A grid connection of up to 1.25 GW via Central Georgia EMC
• A projected investment of up to $13 billion
• A first-phase completion target of 2031

Stillwater Development is part of the Stillwater family of companies, whose listed projects are mainly residential community developments^[1]. The data center proposal represented a significant departure from that core business.

Community opposition and the withdrawal

Lovejoy Mayor Marci Fluellyn said in a press release on 6 August that the project had generated "significant public interest" and that many residents had attended meetings, asked questions, and shared concerns over the preceding months^[1]. The mayor said she had held several conversations with representatives from The Stillwater Group to convey how residents felt about the proposal before the application was formally rescinded.

The withdrawal required agreement from Fluellyn and the four-member city council. Clayton County has a moratorium on data center applications in unincorporated areas, but that restriction did not apply within Lovejoy's city limits - meaning the project had been advancing through a local permitting process that was still open when the developer chose to exit.

Georgia's broader data center pressure

The Lovejoy withdrawal is the latest in a series of project retreats across metro Atlanta. A Crow Holdings proposal in Fayetteville was withdrawn in March 2026 after the planning commission denied it. AWS pulled its 500 MW Calvert Technology Center application in Maryland days before a county moratorium hearing in August. Community resistance has become a recurring constraint on large-load siting across the US.

Georgia's pipeline remains enormous despite individual withdrawals. Georgia Power announced a $16 billion expansion plan in December 2025 to add 10 GW of generating capacity by 2030, with roughly 80 percent of that new capacity earmarked to serve data centers. The utility is simultaneously pursuing more than 1,000 miles of new transmission lines, a programme that has required acquiring or condemning approximately 30 residential properties.

The Lovejoy site now reverts to residential planning. Whether the 1.25 GW of anticipated load re-enters Central Georgia EMC's interconnection queue under a different applicant - or simply disappears - is the question that matters most for the utility's near-term capacity planning.