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Vol. I · No. 1 Cleveland, Tenn. · Friday, November 13, 2026 Price: Free

Council Meetings › project-river-community-meeting

project-river-community-meeting · September 12, 2026

Project River Community Meeting (second)

The Wright family's development team held the second of two community meetings on Project River, its proposed $11.3 billion power-and-data-center campus in northern Bradley County. Saturday's event used an open-house format, with stations where residents spoke directly with experts on separate parts of the proposal, in contrast to the moderated, pre-submitted-question panel at the September 1 meeting. Supporters, mostly building-trades union representatives, pointed to the jobs; a largely opposed crowd said their questions went unanswered and that an open house was not the public forum they were promised. The developers repeated that the campus is anchored by its on-site power plant, that a data center is the most likely but unsigned customer, and that traffic and environmental studies come after the city approves annexation and a land-use change.

Summary

TL;DR: The Wright family's development team held the second of two community meetings on Project River, its proposed $11.3 billion power-and-data-center campus in northern Bradley County. Saturday's event used an open-house format, with stations where residents spoke directly with experts on separate parts of the proposal, in contrast to the moderated, pre-submitted-question panel at the September 1 meeting. Supporters, mostly building-trades union representatives, pointed to the jobs; a largely opposed crowd said their questions went unanswered and that an open house was not the public forum they were promised. The developers repeated that the campus is anchored by its on-site power plant, that a data center is the most likely but unsigned customer, and that traffic and environmental studies come after the city approves annexation and a land-use change.[1][2][3]

Format

An open house at the PIE Center, 10 a.m. to noon, with stations where "residents could speak directly with experts in different parts of the proposal," unlike the September 1 stage meeting where questions were pre-submitted by QR code and read by a moderator. People on both sides questioned the experts directly. Because it ran as simultaneous stations rather than one presentation, there is no single full-meeting recording (WCLE/MixTV livestreamed and archived the September 1 meeting; it did not the September 12 open house).[1][3]

What the team said (recap of the proposal)

  • Land: the family has applied to annex and rezone about 850 acres west of Interstate 75 and north of Old Lower River Road. In a same-week interview, Salyer said about 350 to 375 acres would actually be developed for the project.[1][4]
  • Power: 1,500 MW generated on site (1,000 MW natural gas + 500 MW woody biomass from southern pine), plus a requested 360 MW TVA connection for backup and peak demand. Built in four phases over about five years.[1]
  • Customer: a data center is described as the likely customer, with advanced manufacturing, robotics, or semiconductors as other possibilities; the team says the anchor is the power plant and no operator is under contract. Salyer: the data center is "the most likely offtaker … the most well-known model to use."[1][4]
  • Water: no municipal water for day-to-day operations; water is recovered and reused from the biomass drying process in a closed loop, with no intake or discharge from the Hiwassee River. Salyer said Cleveland Utilities would provide a one-time initial fill of "less than a million gallons" over several years, then the loop runs on moisture pulled from the wood.[1][4]
  • Jobs: about 900 permanent on-site jobs at an average salary of roughly $84,000, plus about 1,700 forestry/logging jobs across the region, for more than 2,600 overall. Salyer put the on-site figure at about 500 data-center and 400–450 power-plant long-term jobs, with a modeled power-plant median salary of $84,600, which he said is about 26% above the Bradley County median.[3][4]

Who spoke — supporters

  • Matthew Johnson, business manager, UA Local 43 Plumbers and Steamfitters: "These jobs are going to last forever; they'll last a lifetime. That's a good benefit for a person and their families for many years to come."[2]
  • Lee Lunsford, business manager, Boilermakers Local 454: said the project would force existing employers to compete for workers and "really … benefit everybody," and that the water-capture and build-the-power-first approach were "above and beyond anybody else … so it doesn't affect the ratepayers."[1]

Who spoke — opponents

  • Jenna Kraft, resident: "Our community is pro jobs, we're pro industry, we're just not pro this, and I think they're trying to … carrot and stick us." She added the fight "has honestly drawn the community together united against this … it doesn't matter what side of the aisle people are on."[1]
  • Carrie Fitz Hugh-Jobe, resident: "What do residents want? Well, they didn't want to hear what we wanted; they only wanted to state what they wanted."[2]
  • Jamie Wise, resident: said she came prepared with questions but did not get the answers she was seeking.[2]
  • Matthew McCollum, Hiwassee River Alliance: said residents were promised a public forum and that Saturday's open house did not, in his view, live up to it.[3]
  • Parts of the crowd shouted, "We don't care; we don't want it here." A petition to stop the project is circulating.[2][3]

Developers' own words on the process

  • Mitchell Simpson, CEO, Wright Brothers: "We have 20, 30% engineering drawings, and it's simply not time for that yet. We have to have a land use change and after the land use change is done then we're going to proceed forward."[2]
  • Lukas Salyer, president, Wright Industrial Group: "Our goal from the beginning is to be transparent; if it wasn't our goal we would've gone a different route, we could have just asked for industrial zoning and moved the process through." On WUTC he described the city path as a voluntary informational meeting (no vote, no council present), then a planning commission review of a planned-unit development, then a first and a final City Council vote, "over the next six to seven weeks."[2][4]

Sources

  1. WDEF News 12, "Project River Faces More Questions." https://www.wdef.com/project-river-faces-more-questions/ ↩
  2. NewsChannel 9 (Jakai Spikes), "Bradley County residents get their turn to question developers behind $11.3B Project River." https://newschannel9.com/news/local/bradley-county-residents-get-their-turn-to-question-developers-behind-113b-project-river-pie-center-wright-brothers-cleveland-power-plant-public-meeting-data-center-debate ↩
  3. NewsChannel 9 (Kayelyn McCaslin), "Cleveland residents hear from experts at open forum for potential data center." https://newschannel9.com/news/local/cleveland-residents-hear-from-experts-at-open-forum-for-potential-data-center ↩
  4. WUTC 88.1 "Scenic Roots," "Project River: The Push For A Development In Bradley County," Sept 11, 2026 (interview with Lukas Salyer). https://www.wutc.org/show/scenic-roots/2026-09-11/project-river-the-push-for-a-development-in-bradley-county ↩