Dale Earnhardt’s son blasts stepmom’s planned $30 billion NC data center campus
The Mooresville Board of Commissioners on Aug. 4 will consider approving a new public hearing date for Teresa Earnhardt’s $30 billion data center campus rezoning request.
The hearing date will be on Sept. 15 and the board typically votes on a rezoning the night of the public hearing.
Earnhardt, widow of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt, has faced public opposition to her planned Mooresville Technology Park on 399 acres of undeveloped land she owns in east Mooresville.
Opponents created a website, No Data Center Mooresville.com, that details their concerns, everything from noise to traffic to light pollution.
“My Dad would be livid for his name to be associated in this title!” Dale Earnhardt’s son Kerry wrote on social media Thursday, referring to a Charlotte Observer headline about Monday’s meeting that mentioned his dad’s name.
“Frankly, I’m ashamed our family name is involved in the request to rezone a community that is thriving as a rural residential/agriculture zone to be changed to Industrial,” Kerry Earnhardt said.
Data center developer Tract of Denver, Colorado, would build the center between Patterson Farm Road and Rustic Road near Cabarrus County.
Town commissioners Will Aven, Lisa Qualls and Mayor Chris Carney have visited a Google data center in Lenoir to check out noise levels and truck traffic.
Accompanied by two Charlotte Observer reporters, Carney recently held a decibel meter around the fenced perimeter of the decade-old Apple data center campus on Startown Road in Maiden, Catawba County. Readings were negligible, including at the entrance to the property.
“If it weren’t for the occasional beeping of a backing up truck outside the neighboring Apple building, they wouldn’t hear a thing,” Carney said at the time.
Under Mooresville’s form of government, Carney votes to break any 3-3 ties by the commissioners on zoning and other issues.
Still, “if you think you know where any of the seven people on this board are with this, you’re greatly mistaken,” Carney said at an informational meeting in June called by the Town Board to hear more details from the developer.
Developer touts jobs, tax revenue
According to the Mooresville Technology Park website, the data center would “play a key role in supporting the Southeast’s digital needs.”
The park would bring 277 “recession-resistant” jobs, including 195 paying $125,000 a year, Kristin Dean of Tract has told the Mooresville Planning Board.
The data center will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue for Mooresville, Iredell County and local public schools over 20 years, according to Mooresville Technology Park.com.
Kerry Earnhardt said he’ll attend Monday’s meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. at Town Hall, 413 N. Main St.
“Infrastructures like this don’t belong in neighborhoods where people’s natural resources will be depleted, wildlife will be uprooted, and the landscape and lives of the people that call this area home will forever be changed,” he said.
Kerry Earnhardt said he’d prefer “homes built with people loving the land we live on ... the way this area was intended to be!”
This story was originally published July 30, 2025 at 2:26 PM with the headline "Dale Earnhardt’s son blasts stepmom’s planned $30 billion NC data center campus."