2026-07-28 — Rincon meets on the plan ⟨daily 2026-07-28⟩

• The local-opposition track went live in person — WTOC: “Coffee, concerns and ‘Camellia’” — Rincon residents met today on the OpenAI plan, capping a week of organizing coverage (WJCL 07-22, WTOC 07-24); directly on the watch line’s “local secrecy backlash” item. Georgia Power’s 25-yr PPA signing (07-23) also recirculated — already on file, not new. (WTOC 07-28, via cold-rotation sweep)

2026-07-24 — Opened

• Thread opened (ben-steer) — opened; /crawl pending for backstory. ⟨steer 2026-07-24⟩

← Backstory

• Site named — Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub, a 2,600-acre industrial park near Rincon, Effingham County GA; the data-center build itself is ~101 acres across four buildings, already zoned industrial so no rezoning vote was required. (The Current GA) ⟨crawl 2026-07-28⟩
• Power deal — Georgia Power signed a 25-year PPA with OpenAI for 3.2GW (phased 2028→2032, “over 2 million homes” worth), with OpenAI committing up to 1GW of flexible demand response back to the grid; the DRI filing left the actual generation mix blank as of 2026-07-25. (The Current GA) ⟨crawl 2026-07-28⟩
• Developer of record — filings name only Octans GA LLC, c/o Butler Snow (a Macon registered-agent/law firm); no general contractor or financial backer named, and no Oracle/SoftBank/MGX/Crusoe Stargate-JV structure appears anywhere in Camellia-specific coverage — reads as an OpenAI-direct build, structurally distinct from the Abilene TX Stargate consortium. (thin on partners — absence checked across ~10 outlets, no positive confirmation) (The Current GA) ⟨crawl 2026-07-28⟩
• Public unveiling — announced at a Rincon open house 2026-07-23 (~1,000 attendees, ~300 protesting outside); a Change.org petition hit 7,000+ signatures that evening and 10,000+ by the next day, with residents’ core complaint being the secrecy of negotiations (no written deal existed “until the last minute,” per a county commissioner) more than the project itself. (The Current GA) ⟨crawl 2026-07-28⟩
• Deal terms — 50% property-tax abatement for 15 years (after which OpenAI is expected to become the county’s largest taxpayer), an $80M community benefits package (education/safety/health/small-business), up to $71M in Codex software credits for GA students, and 400 permanent jobs; approved by the Industrial Development Authority (a quasi- independent body) with no formal county commission vote. (The Current GA) ⟨crawl 2026-07-28⟩
• Regulatory status — county submitted a Development of Regional Impact (DRI) application 2026-07-24; next gate is a state Coastal Regional Commission review capped at 30 days, with engineering/fire/ stormwater/noise review still pending after that. No formal groundbreaking date found — project is pre-construction as of 2026-07-28. (The Current GA) ⟨crawl 2026-07-28⟩
• Cost figure unreconciled — most local Georgia coverage cites $20B vs. Bloomberg’s original “$30B+”; not resolved to a single number this crawl. (The Current GA · Bloomberg) ⟨crawl 2026-07-28⟩
• Not the SoftBank Ohio campus — confirmed distinct: SoftBank’s ~10GW Ohio project sits on the former DOE Portsmouth/PORTS uranium-enrichment site (Piketon, OH), with OpenAI reportedly leasing capacity there rather than building/owning as at Camellia; no outlet found conflates the two. (medium — RSS-metadata sourcing on the Ohio side, no publisher body text resolved) (Data Center Dynamics via Google News RSS) ⟨crawl 2026-07-28⟩
• Regional pattern — Camden County passed a data-center moratorium in May 2026 and Bulloch County/Port Wentworth residents are separately pursuing one, suggesting Camellia-style local pushback is becoming a regional GA trend, not a one-off. (thin — one convergent mention) (The Current GA) ⟨crawl 2026-07-28⟩