# Pulaski County Planning Correspondence on Project Leo Eleven email threads from the Pulaski County Planning & Development Department's Project Leo file, September 2024 through April 2026 — the running back-and-forth between county staff, AVAIO's engineers, and outside inquirers. The correspondence is where the county states, in its own words, how little authority it had over the project. ## What's inside - `email 101025.pdf` and `email 101025-1.pdf` — duplicate copies of the master "145th Street Development" thread (2024-09-27 to 2025-10-10): the first contact, the September 2024 submittal, and the discovery of the Vesta Addition plat. - `email 031025.pdf` — "Fw: 145th Development" (March 2025): Kimley-Horn sends the [[AVAIO Project Leo Data Center Floor Plans|40 MW and 60 MW floor plans]]; a parking-reduction discussion. - `email 031425.pdf` — "Re: 145th Development Floorplan Breakdown" (March 2025): the county concurs on administrative square footage and the parking ratio. - `email 011326.pdf` — "Re: Location of proposed data center" (Jan 2026): a resident asks whether the site is in Wrightsville's former extraterritorial jurisdiction. - `email 011626.pdf` — "Re: AVAIO Digital Partners - data center campus" (Jan 2026): a development-services firm requests the project engineer's contact. - `email 012226.pdf` — "Re: Data center site" (Jan 2026): a brief exchange with an inquirer. - `email 022326.pdf` — "Re: FOIA request for AVAIO Digital Leo - data center" (Feb 2026): an earlier FOIA request for the Project Leo file. - `email 032026.pdf` — "Re: AVAIO Digital Project Leo Data 145th St" (Jan–March 2026): a construction-data firm's inquiry; the county's building-count and square-footage answers. - `email 042426.pdf` — "RE: Media inquiry about data centers" (April 2026): an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette inquiry and the county's internal zoning answer. - `email 081825.pdf` — a Kimley-Horn out-of-office auto-reply (Aug 2025). ## Key takeaways - **The county's own statement of its limits.** Answering a Democrat-Gazette inquiry routed through the county communications office, [[Jim Cranor]] wrote that the 145th Street site *"is currently not zoned by Pulaski County but is classified as a high impact industrial area on the land use plan adopted by the Quorum Court in May of 2025 (25-OR-20),"* needs no variance, and that *"with the ordinances currently adopted, Pulaski County would have difficulties stopping uses like data centers unless such a facility were proposed in the Lake Maumelle Watershed or were proposed in an area of one of the former ETJ's with a zoning classification other than Industrial"* (`email 042426.pdf`, pp. 2–3). He explained that for an un-zoned site the county conducts only a staff site plan review, with public notice required *"unless the application requests a variance."* - **AVAIO's matching understanding.** From the outset AVAIO's engineer treated the site as unregulated: *"We understand there is no zoning, and therefore, no land use restrictions on the property. We also understand that the project will not be subject to a public hearing at this time (we are requesting no variances and not platting the property at this time)"* (`email 101025.pdf`, p. 6, Matt Cox of Kimley-Horn, 2024-09-30). - **The Vesta Addition problem.** Reviewing the resubmittal, Cranor flagged *"the existence of the platted Vesta Addition Subdivision inside the subject property. This subdivision should be petitioned for reversion to acreage... as our ordinance does not allow buildings to cross platted lot lines"* (`email 101025.pdf`, p. 3, 2024-11-04). A year later Kimley-Horn confirmed the plan: *"We want to get rid of that internal acreage and have one parcel. So we would like to do the reversion process as suggested"* (`email 101025.pdf`, p. 1, 2025-10-10). See [[Vesta Addition Reversion to Acreage]]. - **The site plan shrank.** Asked by a construction-intelligence firm for current figures, Cranor wrote in January 2026 that *"The current version of the site plan has 6 single and multi-story buildings with associated parking plus site areas allocated for a 5:30 ac electrical substation and a 20 acre Electrical substation"* and in March 2026 that *"1,771,800 is square footage for the buildings in the current site plan"* — down from the 3,426,000 SF on the September 2024 plan (`email 032026.pdf`, pp. 1–2). He added: *"We don't know who the architect is for this project."* - **The project was not finally approved as of early 2026.** Cranor, January 2026: *"The Avaio Data Center project has not been given a final approval by Pulaski County yet. The engineer (Kimley Horn Associates) is still working through State and federal permitting that the county needs copies of before we approve the project"* (`email 032026.pdf`, p. 2). - **The data center drew public and press attention.** A resident asked whether the site lay in Wrightsville's former ETJ; Cranor confirmed *"The site is partially in what was Wrightsville's ETJ"* and McClendon added *"they have no ETJ, now"* (`email 011326.pdf`). A separate requester, "Val Hart," filed a FOIA request on 2026-02-19 for *"the checklist, site plan, etc: all submitted information to date to the PC Planning Board, by the entity seeking to build the AVAIO datacenter,"* which Cranor fulfilled by Dropbox link (`email 022326.pdf`). And an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter asked the county five questions about data centers in April 2026 (`email 042426.pdf`). - **AVAIO's principals and consultants appear in the cc lines.** The master thread copies Tom Nesel and Joe Hubbard (`@avaiocapital.com`) and Chad Mendell and Leo Tran (`@stantec.com`); a later thread copies Tom Nesel of AVAIO (`email 101025.pdf`, p. 5; `email 031425.pdf`). ## People and orgs mentioned - [[Jim Cranor]], [[Van McClendon]] — Pulaski County Planning and Development. LaTresha Woodruff — county Director of Communications; Tab Townsell — county staff (both [[Pulaski County Government]]). - [[Brianna Covington]], Matt Cox, Kaden Watkins, Devin Randall — [[Kimley-Horn]] engineers on the project. - [[Tom Nesel]], Joe Hubbard — [[AVAIO Digital Partners]] / AVAIO Capital. Chad Mendell, Leo Tran — [[Stantec]]. - Plain-text mentions, not anchored beyond this production: Kristy Eanes and Olan Asbury (inquirers); Val Hart / Valerie Hart (an earlier FOIA requester); Andrea Mason (ConstructConnect, a construction-data firm); Amir Mahmoud (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter); Megan Bielinski (Industrial Services / Ind-Serv); Cody Church (Quail Creek Fire Department). ## Concepts invoked - [[Site plan review]] — the administrative review the correspondence documents. - [[Reversion to acreage]] — the Vesta Addition plat issue runs through the master thread. ## Events documented - [[2024-09 AVAIO Files Its Project Leo Site Plan with Pulaski County]] - [[2024-12 Pulaski County Conditionally Approves the Project Leo Site Plan]] ## Cross-references - The county's "no leverage" statements here are the documentary basis for the finding in [[county-pulaski/project-leo-2026-05-22/_overview|the production overview]] and explain the [[2026-05 Pulaski County Government FOIA Response|county's "no records" FOIA response]]. - The construction-firm inquirer's own framing in `email 032026.pdf` repeats the public "$6 billion / $21 billion / 760-acre / 150 MW scaling to 570 MW" figures — a requester's characterization, not a county statement; the county answered only the building count and square footage. ## Open questions / follow-ups - `email 101025.pdf` and `email 101025-1.pdf` are byte-distinct but textually identical copies of the same thread. - "Val Hart" is the earlier FOIA requester whose request prompted the county to pre-compile the Planning file noted in [[2026-05 Pulaski County Government FOIA Response]]; that person's identity and interest are not established in the corpus.