Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | November 16, 2026 | Worcester Business Journal 3 Worcester Business Journal (ISSN#1063-6595) is published bi- weekly, 24x per year, including 4 special issues in May, September, October, and December by New England Business Media, 446 Main St, Suite 201, Worcester, MA 01608. Periodicals postage paid at Worcester, MA. Copyright 2026. All rights reserved. Postmaster: Please send address changes to: Worcester Business Journal, 446 Main St, Suite 201, Worcester, MA 01608. Subscriptions: Annual subscriptions are available for $100.00. For more information, please email circulation@nebusinessmedia.com or contact our circulation department at 508-755-8004 x242. Advertising: For advertising information, please call Kris Prosser at 508-755-8004 ext. 286. Worcester Business Journal accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or materials and in general does not return them to the sender. Worcester Business Journal 446 Main St, Suite 201, Worcester, MA 01608 508-755-8004 tel. • www.wbjournal.com Worcester Business Journal WBJ A division of: Editor, Mark Conti, mconti@wbjournal.com Senior Staff Writer, Paula J. Owen, powen@wbjournal.com Contributors Sloane M. Perron, Sara Bedigian, Emily Micucci, Livia Gershon, Monica Benevides, Susan Gonsalves, Tanner Stening Photographers Matt Wright, Edd Cote, Christine Peterson Research Director Stephanie Meagher, smeagher@nebusinessmedia.com Research Assistant, Heide Martin, hmartin@nebusinessmedia.com Production Director, Kira Beaudoin, kbeaudoin@wbjournal.com General Manager Kris Prosser, kprosser@wbjournal.com Senior Accounts Manager Christine Juetten, cjuetten@wbjournal.com Account Executive Jeff Swerdlick, jswerdlick@wbjournal.com Special Product Manager Regina Stillings rstillings@nebusinessmedia.com Director of Finance, Sara Ward, sward@nebusinessmedia.com Accounting Clerk, Rae Rogers, rrogers@nebusinessmedia.com Event Coordinator Patty Harris, pattyh@wbjournal.com Director of Audience Development and Operations, Leah Allen, lallen@nebusinessmedia.com Business Office Assistant Nicole Dunn, ndunn@nebusinessmedia.com Publisher and CEO, Tom Curtin tcurtin@hartfordbusinessjournal.com Chief Operating Officer Andrea Tetzlaff, atetzlaff@mainebiz.biz Publisher Emeritus, Peter Stanton pstanton@nebusinessmedia.com BY PAULA J. OWEN WBJ Senior Staff Writer U nified Global Packaging Group and e Kra Group have proposed a massive $16 billion data center campus of 10 buildings on property located off Boston and Providence roads in Sutton. e proposal by Kra Group, headed by New England Patriots owner Robert Kra, calls for the first two buildings to open in 2029, with two more each year through 2033, according to a Nov. 9 memo from Town Manager Austin J. Cyganiewicz to the select board. At full build-out, the campus for the proposed project, called the Unified Parkway Data Center project, would draw roughly 900 megawatts of power and represent more than $16 billion of private investment, the developer estimates, several times the $2.8 billion in assessed value of all property in Sutton today, the memo said. e Sutton Select Board held a public forum on Nov. 10 to provide preliminary fiscal and regulatory review of the proposal. e plan met resistance from many residents. Officials said the proposal is in the early stages of consideration, and noted the potential windfall for the town. "Using deliberately conservative values, staff estimates the first two buildings would pay about $10.4 million a year in property tax once fully assessed in FY2031, rising to about $27.8 million a year with all ten buildings in FY2035," the memo says. "e Town's entire FY2027 tax levy is about $32 million. Because the Town raises only what its budget requires, the main effect would be lower tax bills: about $2,300 less for the average single-family home in FY2031 and about $5,800 less in FY2035." e proposal is tentative, the memo said, and no application has been filed, and details on power, water, equipment and site impacts have not been provided to the town. Cyganiewicz did not immediately respond to a request for comment. e project would also "close the structural budget gap in the town's Multi-Year Financial Plan beginning in fiscal FY2031, and perhaps sooner with estimated building permit revenue," the memo says. Gov. Maura T. Healey signed an executive order in September requiring local approval before developers can move on to state permitting, representing her administration's latest crackdown on the facilities aer halting tax breaks earlier this summer. Under Healey's executive order, no state permits can be issued for a proposed data center project without local approval and a community benefits agreement. e developer must also pay its own grid costs and contribute to a new Ratepayer Protection Fund if it does not supply its own clean power. e order is designed to keep the costs of the facilities from falling on other electric customers. Pending data centers will now need to strike community benefits agreements with host communities that align with state standards before state permitting can get underway. e executive order also blocks the use of non-disclosure agreements between state agencies and data centers to "ensure a transparent and fair approval process," Healey's office said. e governor in June paused applications for data center tax incentives, as her administration rolled out a framework for data center development. e guardrails, which include expectations for securing tax breaks, stipulate that new data centers should directly procure or develop the energy resources to support their operations — without raising energy costs for ratepayers and straining the electric grid. Data centers should also be situated where sufficient water supplies, wastewater and infrastructure exist, and they must minimize air emissions. Communities should also play a "meaningful role" in project planning and development, the Healey administration said. Sutton's zoning bylaws do not currently address data centers, so the town's two main tools, the memo says, are the community benefits agreement that would give the town "meaningful leverage" and a zoning bylaw. e proposed project is within Unified Global Packaging Group's property and is crossed by major electric transmission lines including a 345-kilovolt line running from Millbury to West Farnum and a 115-kilovolt line, the memo said. e developer's preliminary plan proposes three substations, including a National Grid substation near Dudley Road. e developer values each building at about $675 million of real property, of which $600 million is electrical, cooling and generator systems, and approximately $1 billion of computer equipment such as racks and servers, putting the first phase of the project at about $3.35 billion and the full campus at roughly $16.75 billion in 2026 money. Unified Global Packaging Group said it is in discussions with ISO New England, the regional grid operator, to secure the necessary power, and that it is exploring the use of reclaimed water for cooling. Kra Group proposes $16B data center complex in Sutton W A $16 billion data center campus is proposed off Boston and Providence roads in Sutton. PHOTO | MARK CONTI

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