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Data Center Watch Report · ZIP 29571

Marion

Marion

Rejected/withdrawnZIP 56.6% Blackpop 13,788

Withdrawn — approved by Marion County Council Jan 22, 2026 (with tax incentives), then cancelled by the developer June 11, 2026. No facility built.

Researched: 2026-08-02 · Lead source: Brockovich AI Data Center community map (3 resident reports, 2025-05-01→2026-05-27) · ZIP demographics: 56.6% Black, pop 13,788 (Census ACS 2023) · County: Marion (~56% Black) Status: Withdrawn — approved by Marion County Council Jan 22, 2026 (with tax incentives), then cancelled by the developer June 11, 2026. No facility built.

This report is research, not legal, financial, real-estate, or investment advice.

0. Snapshot

Marion, SC sits inside the single loudest data-center story in the state: "Project Liberty," a $2.4–$2.5 billion campus that Stream Data Centers (Dallas) proposed on roughly 400+ acres in the Marion County Industrial Park, off the U.S. 501 Bypass between the city of Marion and Mullins. Marion County Council pushed the incentive ordinance through all three readings in about two weeks (Jan 6 → Jan 22, 2026) and gave final approval 6–1 on a snowy January night — after every council member signed a nondisclosure agreement that kept the words "data center" off the public agenda. Residents found out what they'd approved only afterward. Two packed public meetings and organized opposition followed. On June 11, 2026 Stream pulled out, saying "utility power cannot be sourced on this site within the required timeframe." The pin is worth documenting precisely because the deal was designed not to be seen: a majority-Black rural Pee Dee county, an NDA, and a rushed winter vote.

1. The Facility & Where It Sits

  • Developer: Stream Data Centers (Dallas, TX), acting through a Delaware shell entity reported as Eagle Myra, LLC, under the code name "Project Liberty."
  • Scale: ~$2.4–2.5 billion at full build; a reported first phase ~$800 million. Site ~400–407 acres in the Marion County Industrial Park.
  • Location: off the U.S. Highway 501 Bypass, between Marion and Mullins — rural, unincorporated Marion County. (Marion 29571 and Mullins 29574 both flank the site; see the companion report mullins-sc-29574.md.)
  • Status: Withdrawn. Approved by County Council Jan 22, 2026; developer cancelled June 11, 2026, citing an inability to source utility power in the required timeframe. Stream said committed community funds (after-school programs, library resources) would still be distributed.

2. Public Hearings & Notices

  • Jan 6 → Jan 22, 2026 — the incentive ordinance for "Project Liberty" cleared all three mandatory readings in ~two weeks, far faster than the usual 6–8 weeks. The agenda line said only "Project Liberty," with no project details; per reporting, every council member signed an NDA at the request of state-level economic-development intermediaries.
  • Jan 22, 2026 — final reading approved 6–1, as residents braced for a rare snowstorm.
  • Late February 2026 — two packed community meetings where residents pressed on water, power, environment, jobs and transparency.
  • June 11, 2026 — Stream announced withdrawal.
  • Verify current agendas via the Marion County Clerk to Council (contacts in §8). Marion County Council streams meetings on Facebook.

3. Power

The stated reason the project died was power: Stream said utility power could not be sourced on the site within its timeline. The Pee Dee industrial-park area is served in the broader region by Duke Energy Progress and cooperative/again-served territory (Marion County lies in Duke Energy Progress / Pee Dee Electric Cooperative country); the exact serving utility and any large-load agreement for the park were not publicly confirmed in coverage. Not found as of 2026-08-02. Statewide context: Santee Cooper (the state-owned utility) adopted an experimental large-load rate in April 2026 requiring customers of 50 MW+ to pre-pay for system upgrades, and the SC General Assembly spent 2025–26 debating data-center electricity demand and who pays.

4. Water & Drought

Water was a top resident concern at the February meetings, but no withdrawal permit, source, or gallons-per-day figure was made public for Project Liberty before it was cancelled. Not found as of 2026-08-02. Drought: Marion County was under moderate drought for much of 2026; in July 2026 SCDNR downgraded Marion (with eight other Pee Dee counties) from moderate to "incipient" drought after rain, while neighboring Darlington/Marlboro sat at severe. Roughly 83% of the state was in drought as of early July 2026.

5. Population & Who Lives Here

ZIP 29571 is 56.6% Black, population 13,788; Marion County is ~56% Black and one of South Carolina's poorer rural counties, in the Pee Dee. Reporting (Capital B News) framed Project Liberty as a quiet, NDA-shielded approval in a majority-Black rural county whose residents were kept out of the decision — the environmental-justice pattern this project set out to document. Population has trended flat-to-down for years.

6. Money — Abatements, Incentives, Jobs

  • County Council approved a Fee-in-Lieu-of-Tax (FILOT) agreement plus related incentives for Eagle Myra/Project Liberty. Reporting described the FILOT as dropping the effective assessment sharply (from the standard 10.5% manufacturing/commercial rate toward ~4–6%) over a long term (reported up to decades) — exact multi-year dollar values were not published before cancellation. Specific FILOT dollar total not found as of 2026-08-02.
  • Developer claims cited in coverage: about 60 permanent jobs and roughly $28 million/year in tax revenue at full build.
  • Because the project was withdrawn, no incentives are being paid; Stream said only that already-committed community-benefit funds would be distributed to local nonprofits.

7. Community Reaction & News Coverage

Local/regional outlets: The Post and Courier (Pee Dee), WMBF News, WPDE, Spectrum News, and the newsletter Carolina Ecology (Sam Harrelson) covered the fight closely; Capital B News put it on the national map with "A Rural S.C. County Quietly Approved a $2B Data Center During the Winter Storm." Organized opposition: the United People Project and the "STOP the Data Center — Marion County SC" Facebook group drove the packed February meetings. The through-line of resident anger was secrecy — the NDA, the snowstorm timing, and the three-reading sprint.

8. Find Out For Yourself

Marion County Council — 2523 East Highway 76, Marion, SC 29571 (PO Box 183). Clerk to Council: (843) 431-5059. Council meets and streams live on Facebook (reported 2nd Tuesday 9:00 a.m. and 4th Thursday 7:00 p.m.) — confirm the current schedule with the Clerk. Agenda/minutes: marionsc.org → Government → County Council. Ask for the Project Liberty / Eagle Myra ordinance file, the FILOT terms, and the NDA. City of Marion — City Hall, 107 S. Main Street, Marion, SC 29571; Council meets 2nd Tuesday, 6:30 p.m. City Clerk Lakesha Shannon, (843) 423-5961, lshannon@marionsc.gov. SC Public Service Commission / Office of Regulatory Staff — psc.sc.gov and ors.sc.gov for large-load dockets and who pays for grid upgrades.

Questions worth asking:

  1. Is the Marion County Industrial Park land still being marketed to data centers now that Stream has left? Who is the serving utility?
  2. Will future economic-development votes be shielded by NDAs, or will the county commit to naming the end user before a vote?
  3. What FILOT terms did Project Liberty actually get, and would a replacement project inherit them?
  4. What water source and withdrawal volume would any future data center on that site require?
  5. What are the enforceable permanent job numbers — not construction — for any successor project?
  6. Will the community-benefit funds Stream committed actually arrive, and to whom?

9. If You're Thinking About Moving Here

As of 2026-08-02 there is no data center being built in Marion County — Project Liberty is dead. But the land, the incentive appetite, and the NDA-driven process are all still in place, and power constraints (the reason it failed) could be "solved" by a future gas-fired or grid-upgraded proposal. If you live or would live in 29571, the practical watch-items are: whether the industrial-park site gets re-marketed, whether Santee Cooper/Duke large-load costs land on Pee Dee ratepayers, water reliability during recurring drought, and whether the county changes how it discloses these deals. All unresolved as of 2026-08-02.

10. Sources

Lead source: resident reports on the Brockovich AI Data Center community map, then independently verified against public records. Research, not legal, financial, real-estate, or investment advice. Some resident-reported pins remain uncorroborated and are labeled as such above.