Willow Lakes LLC submitted a rezoning application to the City of Fort Pierce on June 17, 2026, seeking to convert roughly 174 acres of a 203-acre site at 10050 W. Midway Road into a light-industrial zone that would allow a large data center campus. The proposal, informally branded in media coverage as Project Neptune, was first reported by TCPalm / Treasure Coast Newspapers and picked up by WPTV, WPBF, WFLA / iHeart, and Reuters. The site sits at the northwest corner of I-95 and Midway Road on land previously earmarked for the Koa Bay surf park and mixed-use housing development, which has since been scrapped, as noted by Surf Park Guide.

Willow Lakes LLC is asking the city to rezone approximately 174 of its 203 acres from the existing Willow Lakes/Koa Bay mixed-use designation to light industrial, the zoning classification that permits data center operations. The remaining roughly 26 acres would stay general commercial, reserved for retail uses including a hotel, gas station, and restaurants.

No megawatt capacity, building count, square footage, or total investment figure has been disclosed publicly. The applicant states only that, if rezoning is granted, it intends to enter an agreement with an as-yet-unnamed partner that would then design the facility, submit a site plan, and obtain a separate site plan approval before construction could begin. The end operator remains undisclosed, per SUEDatacenters.

Willow Lakes LLC is the recorded owner of the 203-acre parcel at 10050 W. Midway Road. Beyond property ownership and the rezoning filing, the company has not made its principals, investors, or development track record public. The Project Neptune branding appears in media coverage rather than in official filings, and the intended data center operator or tenant has not been identified.

The combination of FPL transmission access and an engineered lake for closed-loop cooling gives this site a profile that resembles utility-adjacent campuses more than a typical suburban infill project. That distinction matters for how the labor pool will be assembled: the mechanical and electrical specialty contractors best suited to this kind of build tend to travel the South Florida I-95 corridor for utility-scale work, meaning a significant share of the highest-skill MEP and electrical labor would likely be sourced from the West Palm Beach-to-Miami market rather than locally. No formal utility power-service agreement or capacity figure has been made public, so the actual power envelope remains unknown.

The Fort Pierce Planning Board convened on September 17, 2026, to hear the rezoning request and faced significant public protest at the meeting. Rather than vote, the board declined to act, and Willow Lakes LLC withdrew or tabled the application during the session. The proposal now sits in a withdrawn/pending reconsideration status. Any forward progress requires a renewed or revised rezoning submission followed by Planning Board and City approvals. Coverage of the protest and withdrawal was first reported by TCPalm and confirmed by Reuters.

Fort Pierce has no existing large-scale data center cluster. The nearest concentration of data center operations and the contractors who serve them sits roughly 60 to 130 miles south in West Palm Beach and Miami. That geography creates a two-tier labor picture for Project Neptune if it advances. General construction trades, including civil, concrete, and structural work, would draw primarily from St. Lucie County and the broader Treasure Coast, a market with established building trades contractors who serve large capital projects in Port St. Lucie and along the I-95 corridor. Union density is lower here than in Miami or Orlando, but organized trades participate in infrastructure and public-works contracts in the region.

Specialized data center roles tell a different story. MEP engineers, high-voltage electrical contractors, commissioning teams, and low-voltage and controls installers are scarce locally and in high demand from competing residential and commercial growth in Port St. Lucie and ongoing Treasure Coast infrastructure work. The site's utility-adjacent character makes it particularly attractive to specialty contractors already working FPL-related projects in South Florida, which suggests that recruiting and retention strategy for those roles needs to account for the full corridor from Fort Pierce south to Miami.

For a full breakdown of roles, sourcing approaches, and what competitive compensation looks like for this market, see our guide to hiring data center talent in St. Lucie County, Florida. Sources: TCPalm / Treasure Coast Newspapers, which first reported the filing and the September 17 withdrawal, with additional coverage from WPTV, WPBF, Reuters, WFLA / iHeart, Surf Park Guide, and SUEDatacenters.