# The Port of Little Rock Data Center The Port of Little Rock data center — internal codename **"Project Boar"** — is a hyperscale data-center project at the Little Rock Port in Pulaski County, with developer-of-record [[Willowbend Capital, LLC]] (a Delaware shell). The *Arkansas Democrat-Gazette* (via *Data Center Dynamics*) has reported, citing two unnamed sources, that the Willowbend Capital principal is Google; no Tier-1 confirmation has surfaced in the corpus, Google has not commented, and the Little Rock Port Authority's executive director [[Bryan Day]] has declined to comment citing NDAs (which, per [[D003 Synthesis]], is non-evidentiary for principal identity). It surfaced in this corpus on 2026-05-22 while the developer of the [[The Conway Data Center Project|Conway data center]] was being identified: the two projects share a developer-organizer and a near-identical deal structure (the structural correspondence is documented but does not, on the present record, establish a common principal beyond what is independently reported about Willowbend). This is a `confidence: medium` synthesis — the project and its terms are well-anchored in primary public records, while the Google attribution rests on Tier-3 reporting that is uncorroborated by any Tier-1 channel. Per [[T003 - Shell-LLC Principal Attribution for Forgelight and Willowbend]] and [[D003 Synthesis]], the wiki preserves the *DCD* / *ADG* reporting verbatim but with explicit Tier-3-uncorroborated framing rather than "reportedly Google's" in the lead. ## Evidence **The Tier-1 conveyance record (added 2026-05-26).** The 2026-05-26 [[2026-05 Little Rock Port Authority Produces Project Boar Records|Bryan Day production]] supplied the Tier-1 deed, closing statement, Port Authority Board resolution, draft City resolution, and ALTA/NSPS site survey. The corpus now establishes at Tier 1: the [[Little Rock Port Authority]] Board (Chair [[Clay McGeorge]], Recording Secretary [[Bryan Day]]) authorized the sale of "up to 400 acres" of the Ratliffe Property on 2025-04-29 by [[Port Authority Land-Sale Resolution|Resolution 0429221]]; the [[City of Little Rock]] "for the use and benefit of" the Port Authority conveyed 383.52 acres in Sections 19, 20, 29, and 30, Township 01 North, Range 11 West, Pulaski County to [[Willowbend Capital, LLC]] by Special Warranty Deed on 2025-06-24 for **$11,505,600.00** (Pulaski County Inst. # 2025033561, recorded 2025-06-25) ([[Willowbend Capital Warranty Deed]]); the City netted $11,207,829.01 after a $230,112.00 listing commission to Kelley Commercial Partners, $52,560.00 to Gill Ragon Owen, P.A. for City counsel, and standard title/escrow costs ([[Willowbend Capital Closing Statement]]). The survey shows the conveyed land is *"north of Earl Lane and east of Harper Road"* in unincorporated Pulaski County, with "city annexation pending" ([[Project Boar Site Survey]]). **The MOU and its approval.** On 2025-04-29 the Little Rock Board of Directors adopted a resolution authorizing Mayor Frank Scott, Jr. to execute a memorandum of understanding with [[Willowbend Capital, LLC]] "for a development project at the Little Rock Port" (primary public record, [Little Rock resolution and MOU](../../web%20archive/2026-05-22/www.littlerock.gov/willowbend-capital-mou.md)). **The project.** Per the MOU, Willowbend Capital would build "an approximately 300,000 square foot data center facility," ancillary buildings, and infrastructure at a Little Rock Port site, for an investment of "approximately $1,000,000,000," creating "approximately 50 new high-quality jobs," expandable to additional facilities. References to prior infrastructure agreements date the project to at least October 2024 and give its codename — "Project Boar." **The public subsidy.** The City commits to support "a net real and personal property tax abatement of at least 65% for 30 years," through "broad and flexible" bond structures contemplating investment ceilings of "at least $10,000,000,000 for real property and $50,000,000,000 for personal property." The City reduces the electric franchise fee to 0.25% and the water and sewer franchise fees to 0% for the project, and caps permit fees at $200,000 per data center. In return, Willowbend Capital pays the City a "City Enrichment Investment" of $300,000 a year, rising by $200,000 for each additional data center and by 2% every five years. **The developer.** [[Willowbend Capital, LLC]] is a Delaware shell LLC registered in Arkansas on 2025-02-11 (filing # 811535247); its organizer is [[Michael Montfort]] (primary public record, [SoS entity record](../../web%20archive/2026-05-22/sos-corp-search.ark.org/willowbend-capital-llc-sos-record.md)). It is the structural twin of [[Forgelight Ventures, LLC]], the Conway data-center developer — same registration date, registered agent (Corporation Service Company), Delaware private-mailbox address (PMB 160, 2801 Centerville Road, Wilmington), and organizer, with near-consecutive filing numbers (811535239 / 811535247). Per [[D003 Synthesis]], six of these seven "fingerprint" dimensions are largely artifacts of a shared commercial registry-vendor stack used by many unrelated entities, so the structural similarity does not on its own identify a common principal. **The Google attribution — Tier-3 reporting, with one Tier-1 corroborating channel as of 2026-05-26.** *Data Center Dynamics*, relaying the *Arkansas Democrat-Gazette*'s reporting (which itself cited two unnamed sources), wrote that the Port of Little Rock project is **Google's** (web research 2026-05-22, [DCD report](../../web%20archive/2026-05-22/www.datacenterdynamics.com/google-behind-1bn-data-center-in-little-rock-arkansas-report.md)). The wiki preserves this reporting in full and treats it as the strongest available secondary-source attribution. As of [[2026-05 Little Rock Port Authority Produces Project Boar Records|2026-05-26]], one Tier-1 corroborating channel has surfaced: **shared developer-side counsel with the confirmed Google data-center site at West Memphis**. The Project Boar deed was prepared by — and the buyer's Authorized Signatory at closing was — [[Stuart C Hindmarsh]] of [[Kutak Rock LLP]] at 5111 W. JB Hunt Drive, Suite 300, Rogers, AR. The Crittenden County property record card for the Project Pyramid site lists [[GROOT LLC]]'s contact of record as the same Stuart C. Hindmarsh at the same Kutak Rock Rogers address. The Project Pyramid site is independently confirmed in this corpus as Google's (deed chain, water-use registration naming "Google Data Center," sworn EAL CEO testimony naming Altitude Capital as Google's subsidiary). The Hindmarsh / Kutak Rock cross-project appearance is a Tier-1 data point that on Reading A (common principal) corroborates the Google attribution at Project Boar, and on Reading B (regional counsel specialization) does not — see [[Kutak Rock LLP]] and [[Stuart C Hindmarsh]]. **Still no other Tier-1 corroboration.** Google has not commented, no SEC disclosure or Form D filing has surfaced naming a Google-affiliated entity at the Port site, no permitted-facility application names Google as operator, and the 2026-05-26 production has clarified that the project NDA is held by the [[Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce]], not the Port — per [[D003 Synthesis]], NDA-cited refusal is non-evidentiary for principal identity. By comparison, the corpus's *confirmed* Google identification at [[Altitude Capital, LLC]] / West Memphis rested on three independent Tier-1 channels (deed chain, water-use registration naming "Google Data Center," sworn EAL CEO testimony, APSC Order findings). The Willowbend record as of 2026-05-26 has acquired **one such channel** (shared counsel) plus the prior shared-organizer pattern with [[Forgelight Ventures, LLC]] via [[Michael Montfort]] — moving from "zero" to "two" channels of correspondence-based circumstantial evidence, still short of the three-channel standard. The wiki therefore continues to frame the Google attribution as Tier-3-uncorroborated rather than Tier-1-established; a follow-on dialectic on [[T003 - Shell-LLC Principal Attribution for Forgelight and Willowbend|T003]] is warranted if a third Tier-1 channel surfaces. **The Port-side record is now closed pending Chamber production.** In a clarifying response on 2026-05-26 afternoon, [[Bryan Day]] characterized his morning exemption invocation as boilerplate and stated that he has *"nothing else in [his] possession related to Google, Project Boar or Willowbend"* and *"do[es] not have any copies of an NDA related to this project"* — see [[2026-05 Little Rock Port Authority Produces Project Boar Records]]. Day used the project name "Google" in this no-records statement, but his framing tracks the original FOIA request's *"any Google entity"* language; on the wiki's evidence standard this is responsive framing, not an independent Tier-1 attribution. The Port-side documentary record on Project Boar is now exhausted at the five-document level (plus the City's executed deed-authorizing resolution, retrievable from City records). The remaining Tier-1 access channels are: the [[Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce]] (FOIA filed 2026-05-26, deadline 2026-05-29 — see [[2026-05 Chamber of Commerce FOIA Filed]]) and the City of Little Rock's parallel response (deadline 2026-05-28). **The utilities and infrastructure.** Electric service involves [[Entergy Arkansas]] — the City is to negotiate a replacement franchise ordinance, at a 0.25% fee, with Entergy. Water comes from Central Arkansas Water; cooling-tower blowdown discharges through a dedicated Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority line to the Fourche Creek Water Reclamation Facility; domestic sewer connects to an LRWRA force main on Zeuber Road. The Zeuber Road extension is to be publicly funded — by the City or Pulaski County, "including ... funding from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, Arkansas Department of Transportation, [the] United States Economic Development Administration, and the Delta Regional Authority." ## Caveats - The MOU and resolution are Tier-2 primary public records, not FOIA productions; they establish the parties' April 2025 commitments, not the project's current status. - The published MOU is unexecuted — its four signature blocks are blank — though the resolution records the Board's adoption on 2025-04-29. - **The Google attribution is Tier-3 reporting, not a wiki-established identification** (per [[T003 - Shell-LLC Principal Attribution for Forgelight and Willowbend]] / [[D003 Synthesis]]). The *Arkansas Democrat-Gazette*'s two unnamed sources, relayed by *Data Center Dynamics*, are the only sourcing for Google at this project. No primary record names Google; the MOU names only Willowbend Capital LLC; Google has not commented; the Little Rock Port Authority's executive director [[Bryan Day]] declined comment citing NDAs (which does not establish identity either way). The wiki preserves and cites this reporting but applies the [[Identifying the Unnamed Cooling-Water Data Centers]] restraint standard — Tier-3 reporting is reported, not identified — so the project should not be referred to as "Google's" without the Tier-3-uncorroborated qualification in every context where the attribution is load-bearing. - This project is distinct from the corpus's other Little Rock-area site, the AVAIO "Project Leo" campus in Pulaski County — a different developer, a different (far larger) scale, and a different location. ## Open questions - Official confirmation of Google as the principal, and how Willowbend Capital relates to Google's corporate structure. (One Tier-1 corroborating channel — shared counsel — as of 2026-05-26; two more needed to meet the D003 standard.) - The cooling-water source and volumes: the MOU has Central Arkansas Water supplying "domestic water and cooling water," with blowdown to the Fourche Creek facility — but volumes, and whether any reclaimed-water arrangement applies, are not specified. - The (b)(9)(A) records the Port withheld. Day's 2026-05-26 production was the operative public records (deed, board resolution, survey); the project's pre-bid and recruitment correspondence remain at the [[Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce]] under NDA. A § 25-19-105(f)(3) withholding-log request from the Port and a § 25-19-103 reach-grounded FOIA to the Chamber are the next Tier-1 access channels. - Whether the Port of Little Rock load is or will become an [[Entergy Arkansas]] [[Special rate contract|special-contract]] customer, and how it figures in Entergy's resource planning and the [[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider|new-generation cost recovery]]. - The City of Little Rock's pending FOIA response (statutory deadline 2026-05-28) — whether it produces additional records or invokes the same (b)(9)(A) exemption.