# April 2026 FAQ Project Stratus A staff-authored, public-facing Frequently Asked Questions document dated April 2026 — one year after the MOU was approved — addressing 43 questions on Project Stratus. The hand-written page header reads "FAQ — Project Stratus — April, 2026." Significant because (1) it surfaces the **1-gigawatt design** explicitly, the first city-source acknowledgment that Project Stratus matches the corpus's hyperscale-capacity category; (2) it acknowledges the project's water-use scale ("5 million GPD" of grey water); (3) it confirms the Act 9 bond / 65% / 30-year tax-abatement structure described in the MOU; (4) it documents the city's own narrative framing of the project for constituents — including disclaimers around solar on-site, sound regulation, traffic, and property values; (5) the answers are unattributed but appear staff-written, possibly by [[Corey Parks]] or [[Jamie Gates]] given the economic-development framing. ## What's inside - `April 2026 FAQ Project Stratus.pdf` — 8 pages, image-only at 200 DPI; OCR'd cleanly. The original is a printed document with handwritten numbering on the question margins. The PDF is dated only "April, 2026" without a specific day. ## Key takeaways Citations below are by FAQ question number and page in `April 2026 FAQ Project Stratus.pdf`. - **The 1 GW design.** "The data center site is designed for up to 1 gigawatt of power. However, that power and the development of the data center would occur in phases over a number of years" (FAQ Q13, p. 4). This is the **first Tier-1 city-source acknowledgment that Project Stratus is a 1-gigawatt-scale data center** — matching [[AVAIO Project Leo Site Plan and County Review|AVAIO Project Leo]] (~1 GW at full buildout) and consistent with the MOU's $50B personal-property bond ceiling. The "phases over a number of years" framing aligns with [[The Port of Little Rock Data Center|Project Boar]]'s build-out pattern. - **The site selection.** "The company was working with Entergy Arkansas on finding suitable sites in the state. This company was one of multiple who inquired about the site. After Arkansas passed a Data Center Sales Tax Incentive in 2023, national interest spiked" (FAQ Q1, p. 1). **Critical: the FAQ confirms that [[Entergy Arkansas]] was the site-selection partner** — consistent with [[Entergy CEO Direct Testimony|Landreaux's testimony]] on the role of Entergy's data-center recruitment. - **The 50 / $1B numbers are minimum thresholds.** "Yes. The 50 jobs and $1 billion investment mirrors the minimum requirement for the state sales tax incentive" (FAQ Q8, p. 3). This is the [[Act 548 (2025)|Act 548]] / Act 758 (2023) threshold — confirming that the MOU's headline figures are statutory floors, not project commitments. "If the company failed to meet the minimum requirement for the state sales tax incentive, they would be subject to sales tax on their electricity. The project would not survive those conditions" (FAQ Q9). - **State sales-tax incentive is the largest break.** "The largest incentive the company is receiving is an exemption on sales tax on power. This is a State of Arkansas incentive that was passed in 2023 by the legislature" (FAQ Q7, p. 3). The 65% / 30-year property-tax abatement is identified as the second incentive. Approximately 10 other Faulkner County companies are described as participating in Act 9 Bond financing. - **City revenue projections.** "The city of Conway will also receive up to approximately $4M in electric franchise fees" annually (FAQ Q10, p. 3). "[T]he city of Conway only gets about 8% of the total property taxes. So only 8 cents of every dollar. But they will get franchise fee revenue that could total $4 million annually" (FAQ Q11, p. 3). This is the city's own framing of why the property-tax abatement is acceptable — franchise fees (~$4M/year) substitute for the foregone property-tax revenue. - **Conway Corporation's 10 MW role.** "Conway Corporation has agreed to provide up to 10MW (1%) of power to the campus for onboarding and testing equipment. This equates to less than the power they were providing Tokusen when they closed" (FAQ Q19, p. 5). The 10 MW = 1% of 1 GW. Tokusen — a steel-wire manufacturer that closed in Conway — is the implicit comparison. - **Cooling water at 5 million GPD.** "But they will not have access to any water other than the grey water. That volume is currently 5 million GPD" (FAQ Q21, p. 5). 5 million gallons per day is below the [[Google Data Center Water-Use Registration|Google West Memphis registration]] (alluvial-aquifer wells) but consistent with the Tupelo Bayou WWTP's effluent capacity. - **Cooling-water reuse rate.** "I don't know. There is a direct financial incentive to the company to not continuously treat new wastewater when you can reuse the water" (FAQ Q22). The FAQ does NOT identify the cooling-tower cycle count or evaporation rate — a substantive design parameter not disclosed. - **Discharge standards.** "The water discharged into the river will have to meet the same standards as our current wastewater discharge" (FAQ Q23) and "The water discharged into the river will have to meet the same standards we currently meet for discharge" (FAQ Q26). ADEQ permitting will govern. - **300+ permanent jobs, 1,000+ construction.** "The construction will employ well over 1,000. Data Centers of a similar scale typically employ 300 or more full-time employees" (FAQ Q4, p. 1). - **Comparable site cited: New Albany, Ohio.** "Hyperscale data centers exist in some of the most expensive and rapidly growing communities around the country. You could look at New Albany, OH" (FAQ Q37, p. 7). New Albany hosts Meta, Amazon Web Services, and [[Google LLC|Google]] data centers — the comparison is non-specific as to which hyperscaler. - **Solar discussion.** "On-site solar power has not been discussed to my knowledge" (FAQ Q17, p. 4). - **Noise regulation.** "The primary limit on noise will be the 2023 Data Center Noise Ordinance (O-23-55)" (FAQ Q28, p. 6). "The noise ordinance limits noise at the boundaries of the property to 65 decibels. That is the same level as a conversation" (FAQ Q34, p. 7). - **Generator profile.** "Industry standards are 10-15 minutes per month" of testing (FAQ Q31, p. 6). "The industry frequently uses diesel generators" (FAQ Q32). Generator hours and emissions "would be regulated by ADEQ" (FAQ Q35). - **Public access to agreements.** "The agreements with the company will all be governed by ordinance and will all be voted on in public and searchable online" (FAQ Q40, p. 7). A commitment to ordinance-level public visibility on downstream actions. - **The "Fair Share Plus" rate-defense framing.** "Look up Entergy's 'Fair Share Plus' for detailed information about Data Center contracts and future rates. Rates have increased for as long as we've had rates. You can look around the country and observe that places with data centers have experienced rate increases. … I think it's a leap to assume Entergy ratepayers are subsidizing data centers and not vice versa" (FAQ Q16, p. 4). This is the City's own framing on the cost-allocation question that runs through [[Who Pays for Entergy's New Generation]]; the FAQ frames data centers as offsetting, not driving, ratepayer cost increases. (No evidentiary basis given.) - **No principal identification.** The FAQ never names the company. Throughout, "the company" / "the developer" / "the data center" without identification. ## People and orgs mentioned The FAQ is unattributed. By context (the economic-development framing, the cross-references to "we" / "the city," the references to past Conway projects like Tokusen), the author is likely city or Conway Development Corporation staff — most plausibly [[Corey Parks]] (Chief Economic Development Officer, CDC) or [[Jamie Gates]] (CDC), based on their prior involvement. - [[Entergy Arkansas]] — explicitly named as the site-selection partner. - [[Conway Corporation]] — agreed 10 MW power; will operate the wastewater/grey-water facility. - Tokusen — closed Conway facility used as a power-load comparison. - "Entergy's Fair Share Plus" — a public-facing Entergy program referenced but not anchored to a specific docket; the wiki's parallel discussion is in [[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider]] and [[Who Pays for Entergy's New Generation]]. ## Concepts invoked - [[Project Stratus]] — codename used throughout. - [[Act 9 Industrial Revenue Bond]] — vehicle for the 30-year property-tax abatement. - [[Conway Data Center Noise Ordinance (O-23-55)]] — the operative noise control. - Arkansas Data Center Sales Tax Incentive (2023) — referenced as Act 758 of 2023, predecessor to [[Act 548 (2025)]]. - [[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider]] — implicitly invoked via the "Fair Share Plus" reference. - ADEQ permitting — referenced for both water discharge and emergency-generator emissions. ## Events documented The FAQ is itself an event — a citizen-facing communication issued in April 2026. No discrete Event page warranted; this source page anchors it. ## Cross-references - [[Project Stratus MOU and April 1 Special Council Meeting]] — MOU terms the FAQ explains. - [[April 2026 FAQ Project Stratus|This page]] is referenced from [[Project Stratus Public-Comment Correspondence Record]] — many constituent emails referenced or contested the FAQ. - [[Who Pays for Entergy's New Generation]] — the broader cost-allocation analysis the FAQ's "Fair Share Plus" framing intersects with. ## Open questions / follow-ups - The cooling-water reuse cycle count (FAQ Q22) is a substantive design parameter that the FAQ explicitly does NOT answer. A follow-on Conway Corporation FOIA (under the rolling production) should ask for the engineering-design parameters of the reuse system. - The total water-supply commitment (5 MGD current Tupelo Bayou capacity, FAQ Q21) limits the project's growth absent capacity expansion. The MOU contemplates "additional data center buildings" but at 1 GW the design pushes against the WWTP capacity. A capacity-expansion analysis (Conway Corporation Item 4(c), still under review) is the operative downstream record. - The "Fair Share Plus" claim in FAQ Q16 is not anchored to any Entergy document or rate filing. Whether such a program is on file at APSC is a follow-on web/docket research question. - The FAQ's author and the FAQ's posting venue (Conway website? Distributed to council? Mailed to opponents?) are not documented in this production.