Mitchell Simpson

Role

Mitchell Simpson is the chief executive of Wright Brothers Construction Co.^[1] He introduced Project River in an interview on WCLE Mix 104.1 on August 26, 2026,^[1] and presented it alongside Lukas Salyer and engineers from Azure Engineering at the first community meeting at the PIE Center on September 1.^[2]

What he has said publicly

Simpson has described Project River as "two different opportunities": a smaller commercial annexation across from the Love's truck stop near Exit 33, and the roughly 800-acre energy campus by Interstate 75 along the Hiwassee River.^[1] On the campus, he has said the power plant is "100 percent" going forward while its customer is not settled: "we definitely know we're developing a power plant … but I don't know what it's powering."^[1] At the September 1 meeting he called a data center "a high likelihood" but not certain.^[2]

Simpson has said the project needs to annex into the City of Cleveland for water and sewer and is asking for a planned-unit-development zoning, and that the timing is driven by marketing: "we have to have a land use change before we can market the property. Without the land use change, we simply don't have a property."^[2] He has said the project would not seek a tax abatement on the data-center side but would ask for a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement on the power-plant side, tied to a 20-year contract with the power's buyer.^[2]

In our coverage

Project River developers take questions at first PIE Center meeting · Project River: What the Public Record Shows

Sources

Notes

1. Mitchell Simpson, interview on WCLE Mix 104.1 / MixTV.tv, Aug. 26, 2026 (introduced on air as CEO of Wright Brothers Construction). https://youtu.be/70zgi-nwIjY ↩
2. Project River community meeting, PIE Center, Sept. 1, 2026 (meeting video, WCLE Mix 104.1 / MixTV.tv). https://mymix1041.com/media/7qzjqx6/project-river-community-public-meeting ↩