Amazon announced plans to construct another data center outside of Danville, as its first project is currently under construction outside of New Florence.

Amazon representatives shared the plans at the Montgomery County Commission meeting on Oct. 22. The 890-acre development – which is called Project Ridge – will include 15 new data center buildings. They plan to start the project between 2027 and 2029.

“They had land options,” 1st District Commissioner Dave Teeter said. “They gave us a copy of a map and said they wanted to be as transparent as possible because they had a lot of complaints from the first project.”

Amazon said in a statement that it is exploring an expansion of its data center investment in the county by adding additional facilities on private land that hasn’t been acquired yet.

“These potential plans are in an early phase, and Amazon would work with the company on future approvals and permits,” the company said.

Amazon representative Brian Bolton and Columbia attorney Chris Pieper attended the meeting. 2nd District Commissioner Doug Lensing said when Amazon was invited to the meeting, it never mentioned an announcement of another data project.

“They called ahead and we put it on the agenda,” Lensing said. “They announced it that day. They didn’t go through us or anything.”

Last year, Amazon announced its plans to the county about building a data center to be located on a 1,000-acre parcel in the northeast quadrant of the Interstate 70 and Highway 19 interchange near New Florence. The project is called Project Green.

Seven months later, the company announced during an event at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds that it will invest $15 billion to build the data project that will create more full-time jobs, thousands of new construction jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue.

The Amazon data project is under construction as well as the Google data project, which is also located outside of New Florence. Google invested $15 billion on its project, located on the southeast quadrant of the interchange.

Lensing said county officials were surprised by Amazon’s announcement of building a second data center.

“I was reasonably certain that there was no more electricity that we had,” Lensing said. “I thought that would stop any additional (data centers). Evidentially, there must be a triage out there somewhere.”