Cole County Circuit Judge Cotton Walker listened to arguments Thursday about the continued development of a massive data center project in Montgomery County.

Google and Amazon are both building data centers that cover a total of 1,900 acres on opposite sides of I-70 east of New Florence in Montgomery County.

In February, advocacy group Preserve Montgomery County filed a lawsuit against the county and the Missouri Department of Economic Development in an effort to halt the Amazon data center.

The defendants filed a motion to dismiss their lawsuit in March.

After hearing arguments on the motion for two hours Thursday, the judge said he would take the matter under advisement.

The plaintiffs have argued that both the county and the state failed to post a proper public notice of the project or adequately provide information about water and electricity usage by the data centers. They also claim they weren’t fully apprised of the terms of the tax abatement.

Attorneys for the state and the county countered that there is no factual evidence to support the claims.

Walker set the next hearing for Sept. 4.