Grand Rapids, MI

Gaines Charter Township, Kent County, MI (Patterson Ave SE and 76th St SE, near Caledonia)

Microsoft owns about 320 acres in the area already zoned for the use and asked the township to rezone five more parcels (nearly 104 acres) to light industrial for a data center campus. Its draft conditional rezoning contract offered a 65 dB noise cap at residential lines, 150-foot setbacks, no use of local groundwater, no local property tax abatements, payment for water and electrical upgrades, and about 9.5 acres for open space. The planning commission tabled the request on April 15, 2026 after hours of public comment; any recommendation would go to the township board for another public hearing. Microsoft said it could not yet confirm whether the facility would be used for AI. Consumers Energy described it in April 2026 as an AI training facility it is pursuing with Microsoft. We found no reporting after April 2026 on a commission or board vote, so the current status should be confirmed with the township. Acreage figures differ across outlets as Microsoft bought additional land.

Rezoning request acres

104

Already owned acres reported

320

Local property tax abatement

none requested (per draft contract)

Groundwater use

none (per draft contract)

Developer

Microsoft

Mw

not disclosed

Lowell Charter Township, Kent County, MI (Covenant Business Park)

Franklin Partners, which owns the business park property, requested a rezoning without naming the end user. In January 2026 Microsoft confirmed it was the interested company, described the project as in its most preliminary stage, and asked the seller to pause the rezoning so it could engage the community. In May 2026 the township board voted 5-2 against a six-month data center moratorium and created a working group to draft a data center zoning ordinance. As of August 2026 that committee was still on a first draft, no timeline was set for a first reading, and Spectrum News reported the Microsoft project as on pause. Spectrum described it as a potential $1 billion project.

Developer

Microsoft (end user); Franklin Partners (property owner)

Investment reported (USD)

up to 1 billion

Moratorium vote

rejected 5-2 (May 2026)

Solon Township, Kent County, MI (near US-131 and 17 Mile Rd, by Cedar Springs)

Reporting in June 2026 described an unnamed technology company exploring a data center campus of up to 800 acres about 20 miles north of Grand Rapids, internally called Project Peninsula, with talks run through the economic development group The Right Place. Planet Detroit, citing Data Center Dynamics, reported it could exceed $1 billion and cover up to 800,000 square feet. As of late August 2026 no formal application had been filed. The township adopted a six-month moratorium in February 2026, and on Aug. 26 the planning commission unanimously recommended extending it six months (to Feb. 7, 2027 if approved by the board). Local reporting says the township signed a nondisclosure agreement with Venerly LLC, described as a company understood to be used by Meta; this link is reported, not confirmed by the company.

Acres reported

800

Investment reported (USD)

over 1 billion

Developer

not disclosed

Formal application

none as of 2026-08-27

Dorr Township, Allegan County, MI (adjacent to the MSA, along US-131)

Microsoft bought land in Dorr Township for a potential data center. In early March 2026 the township board voted 4-2 for a 12-month moratorium on data centers, choosing it over a six-month option suggested by its attorney. A Microsoft representative said the company supports the township taking its time and that "we will pay our own way." Allegan County is outside the MSA but borders Kent and Ottawa counties and is part of the same regional economy.

Developer

Microsoft

Moratorium months

12

Moratorium vote

4-2

Gaines Township, Kent County, MI (former Steelcase Pyramid)

Switch operates a colocation data center campus in the former Steelcase Pyramid building. At opening, Switch described a campus designed for up to 1.8 million square feet of data center space and up to 320 MW, and said more than 700 people worked on construction and mission-critical roles in the prior year. These are company figures from the 2017 announcement; current built capacity is not stated in the sources we opened.

Operator

Switch

Design capacity (MW)

320

Design sq ft

1,800,000

Grand Rapids, MI (headquarters); global

In October 2025 Grand Rapids-based Acrisure announced about 400 accounting job cuts starting in early 2026, nearly 200 of them in Grand Rapids, citing advances in technology and automation; it said it employed about 2,000 people in Michigan. On May 20, 2026 the CEO announced about 2,250 cuts worldwide (11% of the global workforce), citing AI, data, and automation, effective immediately and phased through 2027. The number of local jobs in the second round was not reported. The company offered severance, extended benefits, and outplacement support.

Oct 2025 cuts

400

Oct 2025 cuts grand rapids

200

May 2026 cuts global

2,250

May 2026 share of global workforce pct

11

Michigan employees reported oct 2025

2,000

Corewell Health system, including Grand Rapids, MI

In December 2024 Corewell Health chose Abridge for AI-generated clinical notes and planned to give access to about 4,000 employed physicians and advanced practice providers across 21 hospitals and more than 300 outpatient and post-acute sites over roughly a year. In its 90-day pilot, surveyed clinicians reported after-hours documentation falling from 4.3 to 2.2 hours per week. This is a documentation-assist tool, not a staffing reduction; no workforce change was announced with it.

Clinicians with access planned

4,000

Hospitals

21

Pilot after hours doc hours per week before

4.3

Pilot after hours doc hours per week after

2.2

Kent and Ottawa counties, MI

Several townships in and near the metro have paused data center approvals while they write zoning rules. Reported examples: Zeeland Township (Ottawa) approved a moratorium in March 2026; Allendale Township (Ottawa) adopted a one-year moratorium covering data centers, battery storage, and large solar and wind on May 26, 2026; Solon Township (Kent) adopted a six-month moratorium in February 2026 and its planning commission recommended a six-month extension in August; Cascade Township (Kent) approved a six-month moratorium with a possible six-month extension. Lowell Township (Kent) rejected a moratorium. Third-party trackers list further pending actions; those are not included here until confirmed by local reporting.

Zeeland township

enacted (March 2026)

Allendale township

enacted, 12 months (May 26, 2026)

Solon township

enacted, 6 months (Feb 2026), extension recommended

Cascade township

enacted, 6 months

Lowell township

rejected

State of Michigan

Michigan exempts qualifying large data centers from the state's 6% sales and use tax on equipment. As reported by Bridge Michigan, operators must invest at least $250 million and create 30 jobs paying 150% of the local median wage. The law extends the exemption to 2050, or 2065 on brownfield or former power plant sites. A Senate Fiscal Agency estimate cited by Bridge put the state and local revenue reduction at more than $90 million through 2065. The bill also bars qualifying facilities from rates that would cause residential customers to subsidize their costs. Local effect: the exemption is part of the incentive context for the Kent County proposals; the Microsoft Gaines draft contract separately offered to forgo local property tax abatements.

Public act

2024 PA 207

Min investment (USD)

250,000,000

Min jobs

30

Wage floor

150% of local median wage

Sunset

2050 (2065 for brownfield or former power plant sites)

Consumers Energy service territory, including Kent and Ottawa counties, MI

On Nov. 6, 2025 the Michigan Public Service Commission approved terms of service for new Consumers Energy customers of 100 MW or more at one site (or 100 MW aggregated across commonly owned sites of at least 20 MW). Terms include contracts of at least 15 years, monthly billing of at least 80% of contracted capacity, an exit fee equal to the minimum bill times remaining months, collateral of half the exit fee, and a filing before each customer connects showing other customers are not paying its costs. In April 2026 Consumers reported a pipeline of roughly 9 GW of more qualified large loads and named an AI training facility near Grand Rapids it is pursuing with Microsoft.

Threshold (MW)

100

Min contract years

15

Min billing pct of contract

80

Utility large load pipeline (GW)

9

State of Michigan

On June 18, 2026 Senate Democrats introduced a package including bills to cap data center water use, require projects to pay up front for at least 20 years of power costs, and limit public officials' use of nondisclosure agreements, following earlier bills (SB 762 and SB 763) on reporting and keeping costs off residential customers. The package does not pause permitting. Democrats control the Senate and Republicans lead the House; no votes were reported as of the source date.

Introduced

2026-06-18

Bills named

SB 1046, SB 1047, SB 1049 (plus SB 762, SB 763 from 2025)

State of Michigan

On Feb. 23, 2026 State Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou (D-East Lansing) announced legislation to regulate employers' use of AI to monitor workers, including notice when workers are tracked and limits on some data collection. Republicans control the House, and the sponsor said she had not yet heard back from Republican colleagues. Secondary sources identify the bill as HB 5579; we did not open the legislature's bill page.

Sponsor

Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou (D)

Announced

2026-02-23

City of Grand Rapids, MI

The city manager adopted Administrative Policy 24-01 on AI acquisition and use in 2024, with human-in-the-loop and bias principles. An October 2025 staff briefing listed current uses (cybersecurity log analysis, generative AI for documents, FOIA redaction, dispatch route optimization, predictive staffing analysis, sewer video analysis, and scanning income tax documents to eliminate manual entry) and planned uses (transcription, legal research, records search, chatbots, geospatial imagery). It proposed an advisory Council on AI whose focus areas include recommending reskilling and upskilling for staff.

Policy

Administrative Policy 24-01 (2024)

Grand Rapids Community College, Kent County, MI

Grand Rapids Community College added an applied associate degree in AI alongside its AI certificate, with an NSF-funded three-year initiative and a seven-week capstone starting winter 2026 where student teams build AI projects for local businesses; 20 West Michigan businesses committed to support it and GRCC expects 60 students through the capstone over the grant. The Right Place partnered on alignment with regional needs. Separately, GRCC leads a $9.8 million U.S. Department of Labor One Workforce grant with West Michigan Works! as workforce partner, training unemployed and underemployed people in manufacturing skills including automation, across Allegan, Barry, Ionia, Kent, Montcalm, Muskegon, and Ottawa counties (about 770 participants completed or enrolled as of early 2023).

Capstone students expected

60

Employer partners committed

20

One workforce grant (USD)

9,800,000

One workforce participants as of 2023

770

State of Michigan, including West Michigan Works! service area

Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity released an AI Workforce Plan at the 2025 Mackinac Policy Conference. A June 2026 progress update reported AI and digital skills training across all 16 Michigan Works! agencies with Google Career Certificates, an AI chatbot at the Unemployment Insurance Agency, and an estimate that about 10% of Michigan's workforce is in jobs with high AI exposure, mostly office and administrative roles. Separately, FOX 17 reported The Right Place found Grand Rapids-area job postings with at least one AI-related skill rose 84% from 2025 to 2026.

Michigan works agencies covered

16

State share high ai exposure pct

10

Gr ai skill postings growth 2025 2026 pct

84