Bonner AI data-center proposal stalls as Missoula County weighs interim zoning pause

A proposed artificial-intelligence data center at Bonner Mill Industrial Park stalled before construction after the property owner withdrew a required signature from the project’s land-use application on July 6, 2026.

The proposal was in Bonner, within Missoula County. Its status changed as county officials were considering an interim-zoning measure that would pause new data-center development while they weighed rules related to environmental concerns.

Land-use application halted

The withdrawn signature was required for the land-use application, according to reporting by Inside Climate News. Without it, the proposed facility could not move ahead through that application process at that time.

The reporting does not establish that the project was permanently canceled. It also does not identify an ultimate developer, the proposed facility’s size, a construction timetable or funding for the project.

What is established is narrower: the Bonner proposal had stalled before any facility was built or operating. There is no reported real-world performance from the proposed data center because it had not begun construction.

County considered a temporary pause

Missoula County commissioners were scheduled to hear proposed interim zoning on July 9, 2026. The measure under consideration would pause data-center development, rather than amount to a documented permanent ban on AI data centers.

The county’s consideration came amid environmental concerns and public opposition to rapid AI-infrastructure expansion. The available reporting does not quantify the proposed facility’s expected electricity or water use, and it does not document environmental harm from an operating site.

Those distinctions matter because the dispute concerns a proposed piece of computing infrastructure and land-use policy, not the measured effects of a completed data center. Environmental concerns were part of the policy debate before construction began; they are not evidence of impacts already caused by this project.

What remains unresolved

The available reporting does not establish the result of the commissioners’ July 9 hearing or the county’s current zoning status. It also leaves unresolved whether a revised proposal could be submitted after the property owner’s withdrawal.

For Missoula County, the immediate issue was whether to use interim zoning to slow new data-center proposals while officials considered how to address the environmental questions and public concerns raised by the Bonner plan. The stalled application did not itself settle those broader policy questions.