• Wheeling and Silicon Foundry Energy have drafted an agreement that would keep the Warwood project below West Virginia's 90MW high-impact data-centre threshold
  • Staying outside that category would preserve the city's option to include the site in a tax-increment financing district, but council approval is still pending

The fact

Wheeling and Silicon Foundry Energy have negotiated a binding memorandum of understanding for the company's proposed data centre and energy technology campus at the former Centre Foundry & Machine Company property in Warwood. Local reporting said the ten-page draft has been reviewed by both sides and is due to go before Wheeling City Council.

State law classifies qualifying data centres with at least 90MW of aggregate critical IT load as high-impact facilities. The rules apply to facilities entering service from 1 July 2025. Property covered by those rules cannot be part of a tax-increment financing arrangement. City officials said staying below the threshold would leave Wheeling free to consider the Warwood site for such a district. The draft does not itself create that district or approve a subsidy.

The assessment

The capacity limit is tied directly to how Wheeling may finance work around the site. If the project remains outside the high-impact category, the city keeps the option of using tax-increment financing. Moving into that category later could change the financial arrangements surrounding the redevelopment.

The wording matters because West Virginia law measures aggregate critical IT load, not a loose description of how large the campus appears. The final agreement therefore needs to make clear how capacity is counted and what happens if Silicon Foundry Energy adds more equipment or another phase. Staying below 90MW also says nothing by itself about power sources, water use, noise or other local concerns.

For BTW readers, Wheeling is trying to settle part of that relationship before the site is built. If council approves the agreement, future expansion will have to be considered alongside the financing structure the city may put around the redevelopment rather than treated as a separate decision later.

What to watch

Watch Wheeling City Council's decision and the final wording of the memorandum, particularly how critical IT load and future expansion are defined. Any later tax-increment financing proposal should also show what public works the district would support and how much revenue the city expects it to generate.