The Van Buren Charter Township Planning Commission in Wayne County, Michigan, voted 5-1 on Oct. 14, 2026, to approve the final site plan for Project Cannoli, the data center campus Google will own and operate near Interstates 94 and 275, a few miles west of Detroit Metro Airport. The vote followed nearly an hour of public comment, Michigan Public reported. Industrial developer Panattoni is managing construction; the applicant on the commission's agenda (Case 25-041) is PDC AK LPIC, LLC, in care of Panattoni Development Company.

What the Commission Approved

The plan covers three data processing and computer center buildings, one administrative office building and two network service buildings on a combined 282.2 acres bounded by Haggerty Road, the I-94 North Service Drive, Hannan Road and Wayne County Community College, according to the agenda. In a review letter included in the meeting packet, the township's planning consultant, McKenna, put the six buildings' total footprint at 973,247 square feet.

The site is already zoned for industrial use, and the commission is required to approve projects that fit within industrial-use guidelines, Michigan Public reported. McKenna recommended approval subject to building-by-building parking deviations, a reduction in lighting levels around one building, added accessible parking spaces, and any outside permits and conditions from the township engineer and fire marshal.

A companion request on the same agenda, item 26-004, sought final site plan approval for a DTE/ITC high-voltage substation and switching station inside the Project Cannoli boundary. McKenna's letter notes that the switching station is reviewed separately from the data center and received its own preliminary site plan approval on May 13, 2026.

What Was Said at the Meeting

"Our job as planning commissioners is to verify that the construction is in line with the law," commission member and township Trustee Jeff Jahr said before the vote, adding that the data center is a "permitted use in the zone, and they have a right to use it," Michigan Public reported.

Adam Kramer, president of Panattoni Data Centers, told commissioners, "We've worked hard over the last three years to take as much community feedback into the site plan and the design," WXYZ reported. Kramer called the project "an incredible generational investment from one of the best companies in the world." He said construction would bring $2 billion in contracts to Wayne County businesses, pointed to Panattoni's partnership with Detroit-based Walbridge Construction, and said the finished facility would have between 50 and 200 on-site employees, according to Michigan Public.

Sarah Gregory of the Detroit Regional Partnership, an economic development organization, said Google would become "the township's single largest taxpayer." Residents who spoke during public comment, including people living in an adjacent subdivision, raised concerns about noise, construction dust and traffic, and utility use, the outlet reported.

Power Demand and Tax Terms

The township's Project Cannoli information page states that "The project site is still a 1.0 GW project" and quotes DTE testimony filed with the Michigan Public Service Commission: "The maximum load at the facility is 1,000 MW." That testimony describes the figure as the "max load" or "contract capacity," with load planned to begin materializing in December 2027 and reach its maximum by December 2028.

On taxes, Van Buren Township and Wayne County officials agreed to give Google a $125 million tax break, and Google agreed to provide $15 million each to the county and the township, Michigan Public reported. County commissioners overrode a veto of the waiver by Wayne County Executive Warren Evans in early October, the outlet reported.

The Utility Contracts and the Regional Picture

The local vote came two weeks after state regulators cleared the power side of the project. On Oct. 1, the Michigan Public Service Commission approved special contracts between DTE Electric and Google (Case No. U-22058), conditioned on protections meant to keep other customers from bearing the project's costs. According to the commission, the supply agreement runs 20 years rather than the five years normally required under DTE's large-load rate, sets a minimum billing demand of 80%, and requires Google to pay for DTE to develop up to 1,600 MW of renewable energy and 480 MW of battery storage to serve the site. The commission noted that its authority covers only the terms of utility service, not whether or where a data center may locate. Michigan Public reported that the Google contracts were the state's first for a hyperscale data center to be decided through a contested case, in contrast to the fast-tracked "ex parte" approval regulators gave in December to DTE contracts for Oracle and OpenAI's 1.4-gigawatt data center in Saline Township.

Elsewhere in southeast Michigan, communities have moved in the other direction. Springfield Township approved a 180-day moratorium on new data center applications, Oxford Township enacted a one-year moratorium, Wixom adopted a temporary moratorium before tightening its zoning rules, and the Detroit City Council passed a resolution urging a two-year pause on new data center permits, WXYZ reported, citing other outlets.

In Van Buren itself, the project has been before township boards for much of 2026. The Planning Commission took up questions about it on Jan. 14 and Jan. 28 and approved the preliminary site plan on Feb. 11 after a Panattoni presentation, and Panattoni presented to the Board of Trustees on May 19, according to the township's project page and McKenna's letter.

What Happens Next

Construction activity is already underway, WXYZ reported. Project documents cited by the station call for underground utility work in eight phases, with temporary road closures near the I-94 Service Drive, Van Buren Street and Old Haggerty Road. Early phases are expected to run through the end of 2026, with more work into early 2027. The final phases are scheduled for March 2027, when Haggerty Road traffic will shift to alternating one-way patterns controlled by flaggers rather than full closures.

The DTE/ITC switching station remains subject to its own final site plan approval. On the utility side, DTE told regulators the data center is expected to begin taking service in December 2027.

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