# Project Stratus "Project Stratus" is the [[City of Conway]]'s internal codename for the Conway data-center project developed by [[Forgelight Ventures, LLC]]. The codename appears across the City's MOU staff materials, the [[April 2026 FAQ Project Stratus|April 2026 FAQ]], the [[Project Stratus Permits Sequencing and Stormwater|permits and stormwater coordination correspondence]] with [[EMH&T]] (beginning January 21, 2025), and — explicitly — the [[City of Conway FOIA-2026-126 Cover and No-Response Letter|Mayor's Office FOIA-2026-129 cover letter]] dated May 20, 2026 which uses the formal subject line "Proposed Conway Data Center | Project Stratus | Forgelight Ventures." Joining the codename to the developer-of-record is therefore a Tier-1-confirmed mapping. ## How it appears in the corpus The Stratus codename traces through the corpus in this approximate order: - **2025-01-21** — earliest dated use. The [[Project Stratus Permits Sequencing and Stormwater|EMH&T stormwater call request email]] from Robert McCurnin (EMH&T) to Kurt Jones (City of Conway), titled "Project Stratus Stormwater Call Request." The codename was therefore in use approximately 10 weeks before the [[2025-04 Conway City Council Approves Project Stratus MOU|MOU approval]] and ~12 weeks before public-hearing notice for the rezone. - **2025-04-01** — Jamie Gates's [[Project Stratus Next Steps and Sequence]] memo to Council uses the codename in the subject line ("Project Stratus Next Steps and Sequence"). The MOU itself, however, does NOT use the codename — only "the Company" / "the Project." - **2025-06-17** — Corey Parks's permits-decision-matrix request to Anne Tucker and Kurt Jones uses "Project Stratus" in the subject line. - **2026-04** — the staff-authored [[April 2026 FAQ Project Stratus|FAQ]] uses the codename in its header. - **2026-05-20** — the Mayor's Office cover letter to FOIA-2026-129 uses the formal "Proposed Conway Data Center | Project Stratus | Forgelight Ventures" subject line — the first explicit Tier-1 codename-to-developer mapping in a city-authored document. ## Stakeholders The codename mapping is acknowledged by: - The [[City of Conway]]'s Office of the Mayor (the FOIA-2026-129 cover letter). - The City's Planning Department staff (the Teams chats, the permits emails). - [[Conway Development Corporation]] (Jamie Gates and Corey Parks use the name in their emails to the City). - [[EMH&T]] (the project's site-civil engineer). Not used in public-facing instruments: - The MOU itself (April 1, 2025) — uses "the Company" / "the Project." - The annexation and rezone ordinances (O-25-37, O-25-38, O-25-39) — refer only to the parcels and the zoning change, not to any data-center project or codename. - The April 1 Special Council Meeting minutes — Brad Lacy declined to identify the project by name. - The Conway Corporation 2026-05-22 interim FOIA response ([[2026-05 Conway Corporation Interim FOIA Response]]) — uses "the project" not "Project Stratus." ## Timeline - **By January 2025**: codename in use in EMH&T and CDC staff correspondence. - **April 1, 2025**: MOU approved by City Council; codename not used in public instruments. - **April 22, 2025**: Annexation and rezone ordinances adopted; codename not used in public instruments. - **April 2026**: Staff-authored FAQ uses the codename publicly. - **May 20, 2026**: Mayor's Office formally equates the codename and Forgelight Ventures in the FOIA cover letter — the first public-facing official statement using the codename. ## Notes The Stratus codename is **not** mentioned in the [[2026-05 Conway Corporation Interim FOIA Response|Conway Corporation interim response]] of May 22, 2026, which uses "the project" throughout. The two custodians (City of Conway and Conway Corporation) appear to use different naming conventions for the same project — a small detail but consistent with the wider pattern of separate custodianship treating Project Stratus through different lenses. The codename's relationship to the broader hyperscale-codename pattern in the corpus: - "Project Stratus" — Conway / Forgelight - "Project Boar" — Port of Little Rock / Willowbend - "Project Leo" — Pulaski County / AVAIO Digital - "Project Pyramid" — Crittenden County / Google (via GROOT LLC and Altitude Capital LLC) - "Project Pulse" — Clark County / DC Devco All five codenames follow the "Project [Single Word]" pattern. The codename's choice ("Stratus" — a low-altitude stratus cloud, an obvious "cloud computing" reference) is whimsical but unrevealing of the principal. Some hyperscalers use cloud-themed project codenames internally (e.g., Amazon's projects often used cloud terminology in early-stage planning); the choice is consistent with multiple hyperscaler practices and does not identify the principal. **The codename does not identify the principal.** Per [[T003 - Shell-LLC Principal Attribution for Forgelight and Willowbend|T003]] / [[D003 Synthesis]] the codename is part of the corporate-shell architecture; the wiki applies the [[Identifying the Unnamed Cooling-Water Data Centers]] restraint standard and does not name the company behind Forgelight on the basis of the codename alone.