JERSEYVILLE – Development of a data center south of Jerseyville is not yet moving forward at this time.
MJM Electric Cooperative owns 15 acres of land between U.S. Highway 67 and Van Horne Lane south of Jerseyville and are currently in the process of selling seven acres to the Chicago-based company Something New LLC. The company applied for a commercial building permit from the county’s Code Administration office to build a small-scale Bitcoin data center at 28860 Van Horne Lane.
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County Board Chairman Mark Wagner said as of Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, the land transfer has not been completed and no commercial building permit has been issued.
Unlike a traditional data center used to power artificial intelligence and cloud computing services, a Bitcoin data center is solely used to “mine,” or generate, cryptocurrency. Crypto mines do this by verifying Bitcoin transactions around the clock, with each verification generating more coins in an energy-intensive process.
Wagner said the company has not provided any information about the possible impact the data center would have on local electric bills, but said certain assurances were made about the facility’s power usage.
“MJM assured us that if there was any strain on the grid at all, they would be the first ones to get their power cut,” Wagner said.
Jersey County and Jerseyville Code Administrators visited a similar Bitcoin data center in Hillsboro and reported seeing a fenced-in area with no noise and “nothing out of the ordinary from any other commercial business,” Wagner said.
While the data center developers have submitted a “sound study” ensuring any noise produced by the site stays below a certain level, Wagner said certain stormwater work required to secure the permit has not been completed.
Wagner emphasized that the county is limited in how it can regulate what land owners choose to do with their own property. He added that no county or city official asked the company to develop on the site – county officials simply received a permit application and cannot deny a project that meets all permit requirements.
Even if the company’s permit application is approved for the site, Wagner said they still have to inform the county once they are ready to be issued the permit. If the project does not begin construction within a certain timeframe after the permit is issued, the company would be forced to restart the entire application process.
Jersey County currently doesn’t have any zoning laws in place, though county officials considered imposing such regulations during a Planning Committee meeting last month. Ultimately, Wagner said, officials decided spending the money to implement zoning laws may not be enough to stop future data center development without new ordinances in place.
Underscoring the issue is the site’s location within a 900-acre site which may still be developed in the future, though several projects that have been proposed over the years have yet to materialize. However, if the surrounding land is eventually developed and annexed by the City of Jerseyville, Wagner said any zoning laws the county would have imposed would no longer apply.
Instead of zoning regulations, County Board members are now looking at updating the Jersey County Code of Ordinances and researching what steps other counties have taken to regulate data centers.
The Jersey County Board meets next at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026 in the auditorium of the Jersey County Administration Building, located at 200 N. Lafayette St. in Jerseyville.
