At first, the plan was to park a taco truck at the site. But when Allen learned that the vehicle he had invested in wouldn\u2019t be allowed inside the construction zone, he rented a small vacant building in Rayville, pulled the truck inside, and turned it into a makeshift restaurant serving \u201cfood worth praising.\u201d<\/p>\n
The risk paid off. Workers coming off 12-hour shifts in safety gear began to stop by for quick, to-go meals. And as Meta\u2019s construction ramped up, the Allens landed recurring catering work with Mortenson, one of the project\u2019s three major contractors.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust this month, we picked up about 10 caterings,\u201d Allen said. Without Meta, he added, the family likely wouldn\u2019t have taken the leap. \u201cIt\u2019s been a huge blessing for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Allen and many other local business owners, Meta\u2019s arrival has brought new customers, contracts, and long-deferred opportunities in a parish that had been losing population and jobs for decades.<\/p>\n
The outcome has been very different for Katie and Logan Stewart. The couple\u2014a nurse and a former farmer in their mid-thirties with two children\u2014invested more than $40,000 of their life savings into Opal\u2019s Orange Food Truck after seeing construction workers post on Facebook asking for food options near the Meta site.<\/p>\n
It was a high-stakes bet. Logan had recently stepped away from farming land near the project, and the food truck\u2014serving burgers, chicken, gumbo, and rice and beans\u2014seemed like a way to build a new livelihood without leaving the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we were like the second or third truck out there,\u201d Katie said. \u201cWhen we first started, we were doing 100 to 120 orders a day.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the momentum didn\u2019t last. When one of the project\u2019s main contractors, DPR, brought in an out-of-state catering company to feed workers on-site, much of the foot traffic Opal\u2019s had counted on disappeared. Workers no longer needed to leave the grounds for lunch.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou talk about supporting the local community, but then you outsource the work,\u201d Katie said of DPR\u2019s catering decision. \u201cIt felt like a slap in the face.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Stewarts couldn\u2019t afford the $1,500 to $2,500 monthly fees charged by two new food truck parks located right across the street from the main Meta entrances, so they parked their truck on a friend\u2019s land a short drive away. Orders fell to fewer than 40 a day. In recent weeks, foot traffic picked up after a local independent journalist wrote about Opal\u2019s, and the Stewarts recently landed a catering job with Meta. They say they\u2019re determined to adapt. \u201cWe\u2019re planning on sticking it out and adjusting where we need to,\u201d Katie said.<\/p>\n
Stories like those of the Allens and Logans are playing out across the country, as companies such as Meta, Google<\/a>, and Amazon\u2014alongside fast-growing AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic\u2014embark upon an unprecedented AI data center spending spree. Collectively, they are projected to invest roughly $630 billion to $700 billion in 2026 alone, a 62% jump from 2025, with total AI-related data-center capital expenditures expected to reach $5.2 trillion by 2030, driven largely by GPUs and energy infrastructure. These mega-scale projects\u2014built to power the AI boom and bolster the U.S. race with China for technological dominance\u2014are helping to grow the U.S. economy, and are being welcomed with open arms by local officials eager for a piece of the economic development these projects promise. A rising tide, they reason, can lift many ships.<\/p>\n And indeed, there\u2019s historical precedent for this optimism: The frenzied construction of massive AI data centers across the country echoes earlier American booms\u2014from the California Gold Rush to the early oil fields of Texas\u2014when fortunes were made by those in the right place at the right time, selling equipment, food, and shelter to the pioneers of new industries. In those eras, local economies thrived on demand for tools, timber, meals, and rooms for laborers chasing the next big thing.<\/p>\n Today, though, in an era of globalization and corporate consolidation, the \u201cpick-and-shovel\u201d ripple spreads very differently. Many of the materials, logistics, and meals for the site are supplied by out-of-state contractors from places like Texas and Arkansas. And the specialized chips and many components that power Hyperion\u2019s AI servers are manufactured primarily overseas as part of the global semiconductor and IT hardware supply chain.<\/p>\n So for many Richland Parish residents, the experience is less one of opportunity than of spectatorship: watching the bustle of progress unfold nearby\u2014and suffering through its accompanying headaches\u2014without being able to participate or share in its rewards.<\/p>\n Camille Farrah Lenain for Fortune<\/p>\n Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Meta said it remains \u201ccommitted to supporting local resources and prioritizing local partnerships whenever possible,\u201d including working with local food vendors to supply more than 600 meals daily. But, they explained, \u00a0\u201cGiven the scale and size of the craft workforce currently at the site, our general contractors needed to find a catering solution that could meet the scale and logistics required to feed thousands of people.\u201d<\/p>\n When Fortune visited the community, residents expressed a worry that the short-term influx of construction workers will reshape their community, raise rents and tear up the countryside, leaving it spoiled when the construction phase ends and the data centers are left to hum away, consuming water and electricity and employing only a few hundred workers. The dynamic is testing long-held assumptions about who actually benefits when a mega-project arrives in town.<\/p>\n Several residents told Fortune the speed at which the Meta deal was made, and its lack of transparency, left them feeling sidelined. Major decisions about land use, tax incentives, and infrastructure were largely finalized before most community members fully understood the project\u2019s scale\u2014which has also grown into a much larger build-out than originally planned. In October 2025, Meta announced<\/a> it had entered a joint venture with funds managed by Blue Owl Capital to finance, build, and operate the Hyperion data center campus\u2014an arrangement targeting up to $27 billion in total development costs and suggesting that Hyperion is intended as a long-term, multiphase campus.<\/p>\n Some described the process as emblematic of a long-standing \u201cgood ol\u2019 boys\u201d culture in local development\u2014one in which deals are struck by a small circle of political and business leaders, who then benefit from the result.<\/p>\n \u201cThe small businesses who are profiting\u2026it\u2019s not a fair game where the best contractor with the best price and the best qualification wins,\u201d said Amber Perez, the local independent journalist who is also a community activist and posts regularly on Facebook about the Meta project. Instead, she said many residents believe the \u201cwinners\u201d are those who are politically and economically connected.<\/p>\n But supporters of the project, including local government officials, economic development leaders, and longtime residents, argue that the Meta investment represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a region that has struggled with poverty, job loss, and population decline for decades. In their view, the disruption is the visible price of long-overdue capital flowing into a part of the state that has rarely attracted projects of this magnitude. Even if the number of permanent jobs ultimately proves modest compared to the construction surge, they contend that the billions in investment, new infrastructure, workforce training programs, and heightened national attention could help reposition northeast Louisiana for future industry and growth.<\/p>\n Camille Farrah Lenain for Fortune<\/p>\n A mixed blessing<\/p>\n Driving east on Route 80 toward the Meta site in Holly Ridge, an unincorporated rural community about 15 minutes east of Rayville\u2014the landscape is defined by flat expanses of soybean and cotton fields, punctuated by grain silos, grazing cows, and the occasional tractor.<\/p>\n At Holly Ridge, however, the terrain changes abruptly. Generations of sharecroppers farmed the land, called the Franklin Farms megasite, until 2006, when the Franklin family sold it to the state of Louisiana, which then hoped to attract an auto plant. That was not to be, but Meta entered a long-term lease for the site in 2024 and purchased it in 2025. Since the company broke ground in early 2025, the farmland has been scraped and leveled into a construction site so disorientingly vast, it resembles the early stages of a city rising from the dirt. At five miles long and 1 mile wide at some points, steel frames jut from the ground. Heavy machinery operates around the clock. An endless stream of trucks pours in before sunrise, feeding a project where thousands of workers move through the site in hardhats and neon vests. Residents complain about damage to their vehicles because of rocks kicked up by the trucks hurtling to and from the Meta site.<\/p>\n Something enormous and unfamiliar has landed, seemingly all at once.<\/p>\n A newly-built road leading into Meta\u2019s Hyperion site carries a prescient name: Far Far Away Lane. The nod to Star Wars is intentional, and the landscape does seem like a new frontier\u2014representing not just Meta\u2019s stratospheric AI ambitions, but the financial, energy-hungry reality of building the infrastructure that underpins the AI boom.<\/p>\n Camille Farrah Lenain for Fortune<\/p>\n Before Meta came to town, the biggest claim to fame of Richland Parish, a community where a quarter of residents live under the poverty line, was arguably that country music artist Tim McGraw was born and raised there. Now, residents are living through a seismic shift that has brought new jobs and excitement to some, and stress and disappointment to others\u2014as well as heavier traffic on rural roads, rising rents, and mounting pressure on housing, utilities, and daily routines in communities unaccustomed to rapid growth. Beyond<\/a> those immediate disruptions, whether the short-term gains of massive construction translate into lasting opportunity remains an open question.<\/p>\n Meta says the project has already created hundreds of construction jobs and will support thousands more over the buildout, along with a much smaller number of permanent roles once the data center is operational\u2014the original announcement said 500. The company has also partnered<\/a> with a local community college to launch a construction and workforce-training program aimed at preparing residents for jobs tied to the site and future industrial development.<\/p>\n And indeed at Meta\u2019s Hyperion site, as thousands of temporary workers have descended on Richland Parish, taking space in hotels, short-term rentals and newly-built RV parks, there are clear examples of individual businesses booming. GrowNELA, the regional economic development authority for northeast Louisiana, pointed Fortune to companies like ServiceMaster Action Cleaning, a Monroe-based facilities maintenance firm that has doubled its workforce since Meta arrived, and Copeland Electric, another Monroe company that says the project has driven a roughly 40% increase in hiring.<\/p>\n The arrival of the Meta project was a catalyst for Chris Holyfield, the owner of Holy Dippers, a company created specifically to serve the construction project. He supplies septic services and eco-friendly restroom facilities for Meta workers\u201458 units so far, with more to be added as construction ramps up.<\/p>\n Holyfield wanted to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, after leaders from the construction companies working on the Meta project told Holyfield that \u201cthis area\u2019s about to explode,\u201d he said. \u201cNo one believed it at first,\u201d he explained. \u201cNow we\u2019re all feeling the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n Holyfield also owns three restaurants in Monroe that do catering work for Meta\u2019s large contracting companies, as well as a seven-story office building in Monroe where Meta leased space before the data center announcement was made.<\/p>\n Rob Cleveland, president and CEO of GrowNELA, who arrived in Louisiana in July 2024 after eight years in a similar role in Michigan, dismissed complaints about the level of local job creation as \u201csilly.\u201d He emphasized that several thousand new jobs have already arrived in the rural Richland Parish community\u2014both working on the Meta site and for businesses servicing the site. Jobs are jobs, he argues\u2014and the pragmatic reality is there aren\u2019t many options for a community like Richland Parish.<\/p>\n \u201cConstant naysayers say they\u2019re short-term jobs, that there will be only 500 long-term jobs, why aren\u2019t you recruiting automotive plants with 3000 long-term jobs,\u201d Cleveland said. \u201cWell, those projects don\u2019t really exist anymore, and we don\u2019t have the labor to support those projects.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Where will they all live?<\/p>\n The influx of workers has created an immediate, practical problem in Richland Parish: housing. Currently, there are about 3,700 workers connected to the site, with an estimated peak in a couple of months of 5,000 (though locals say they have heard numbers as high as 8,000).<\/p>\n To accommodate the influx of construction workers, a patchwork of RV parks, or \u201cman camps\u201d\u2014both large and small\u2014has sprung up across the area. One of Meta\u2019s three primary construction firms, DPR, hired subcontractor Mammoth Industries to build a sprawling, 130-acre workforce housing complex that includes more than 300 full-service RV sites near the Meta project.<\/p>\n And smaller, family-run RV parks are emerging as well. Kayla Caskey, the owner of South Stuart RV Park, about 25 minutes from the Meta site, grew up on the land where the park now sits. \u201cWe\u2019ve had it for a couple of generations\u2014it was passed down from my grandparents,\u201d she said. \u201cI got married and moved away, but my family still lives there\u2014my mom and my brother\u2014and we decided to take advantage of this opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n South Stuart RV Park has room for just 12 RVs, and Caskey said getting it up and running required navigating zoning rules and installing proper facilities, including showers and bathrooms. \u201cWe learned a lot along the way,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we hope, in the end, this will be something good for our family.\u201d The park filled quickly after opening, she added, and she continues to receive daily inquiries.<\/p>\n Caskey is realistic about the park\u2019s future once construction winds down. \u201cIt may just be land out there again,\u201d she said. \u201cBut hopefully, over the next couple of years, it\u2019ll pay off while the workers are still here.\u201d<\/p>\n But for others, the rapid spread of RV parks in the area has felt disruptive and overwhelming. For example, Fortune visited one mile-long dead-end road that until recently was lined with just eight homes. Now, two large RV parks\u2014together expected to add up to 700 hookups\u2014are under construction on the street, many directly next to or across the street from the few single-family homes.<\/p>\n Other area residents say they are being priced out of the area, or even facing attempted eviction, because of the influx of workers. Erika James, a 34-year-old mother of two who grew up in Richland Parish and now lives in a mobile home park in Monroe, a small regional hub about 30 minutes west of the Meta site, says her rent increased several times over the past six months. Earlier this month she received an eviction notice after paying her rent just one day late, saying her family had just five days to vacate.<\/p>\n Camille Farrah Lenain for Fortune<\/p>\n \u201cI panicked and my husband immediately called the property owner and was told it had nothing to do with rent,\u201d she said. \u201cIn fact, he said he didn\u2019t even agree with the decision but it came from \u2018above him\u2019 because \u2018they needed to make room for other tenants.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n After agreeing to pay an \u201ceviction fee,\u201d James was able to stay, but she recently received a text saying no leases are being renewed \u2014 and hers runs out in April. <\/p>\n \u201cMeanwhile, there is literally a sign outside welcoming Meta workers while local families are left wondering where they\u2019re supposed to go,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are now having to entertain the idea of leaving the area completely. There is nowhere to go if you can\u2019t pay triple prices.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt breaks your heart to even think about having to leave here,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s getting more expensive every day.\u201d<\/p>\n The Meta project has promised transformation, explained Perez. But she added many residents of Richland Parish have little clarity about what that transformation will actually look like in the end.<\/p>\n \u201cTransform, how?\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s what people are on the edge of their seats trying to figure out, because right now you\u2019re in the chaos phase where you don\u2019t know which way to look, and when the dust settles, what\u2019s left?\u201d<\/p>\n Perez had heard that some people are \u201cwaiting it out\u201d because they want to see if they can sell their property when it becomes more valuable. \u201cOthers just want the heck out because they want their quiet life back, and this is not what they signed up for,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then there\u2019s others who are just stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n A rural Louisiana parish\u2019s fervid campaign to bring Big Tech to its back roads<\/p>\n In Louisiana, the effort to court Meta for the Richland Parish site began early. According to reporting by the Times Picayune<\/a>, Entergy<\/a> Louisiana economic development executive Ed Jimenez and CEO Philip May hosted roughly half a dozen Meta executives at Entergy\u2019s headquarters in New Orleans in early 2024, after May learned the company was searching for a Southern location to build a data center.<\/p>\n This is not unusual: Across the nation, consortia of state governments, utilities, and economic development groups are actively competing to attract tech companies to build AI data centers. For example, OpenAI said it and its partners reviewed more than 300 proposals from over 30 states before selecting five additional sites for its Stargate data center program, following the launch of its flagship facility in Abilene, Texas.<\/p>\n Over dinner, the Meta folks told Entergy that they would consider Louisiana but that the state would have to move fast to come up with a deal. Entergy executives worked with recently-elected Governor Jeff Landry to forge agreements with legislative leaders, cabinet secretaries and local government officials.<\/p>\n Meta ultimately secured significant tax incentives for the project, including a sales tax exemption on the billions of dollars it will spend on servers and equipment. But Meta emphasized that Richland Parish would also reap tax revenue and economic development.<\/p>\n Camille Farrah Lenain for Fortune<\/p>\n \u201cRichland Parish receives both a portion of sales tax from our construction materials along with a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes), based on jobs and capital investment,\u201d a Meta spokesperson said.<\/p>\n These PILOT agreements\u2014common in large data center deals\u2014allow companies to pay a negotiated annual fee instead of full property taxes, with the amount tied to how much they invest and how many jobs they create. Public details of the Richland Parish agreement are limited, but a state contract reviewed by WIRED<\/a> last year confirmed Meta\u2019s payments and tax breaks are structured around hitting specific investment and hiring thresholds. The Meta spokesperson said the company has invested over $300 million to date in roads, water, and other local infrastructure.<\/p>\n While Louisiana also offers broad sales tax exemptions for data center equipment, local governments can still collect revenue from construction-related spending, because the state\u2019s \u201csales and use tax\u201d system applies taxes based on where materials are ultimately used. The result is a complex mix of long-term tax relief for the company paired with more limited, often temporary, revenue streams for the parish.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CamilleFarrahLenain_Fortune260324_Finals-5-e1774373702351.jpg\"\/)
Tim and Lindsey Allen in their food truck, Holy Tacos.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CamilleFarrahLenain_Fortune260324_Finals-e1774373929541.jpg\"\/)
Katie and Logan Stewart pose for a portrait in front of their venture, Opal\u2019s Orange Food Truck.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CamilleFarrahLenain_Fortune260324_Finals-7-e1774373831725.jpg\"\/)
Far Far Away Lane, a newly built road leading to the Meta data center site in Holly Ridge, Louisiana.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CamilleFarrahLenain_Fortune260324_Finals-8-e1774373880505.jpg\"\/)
Erika James in the mobile home park where she lives in Monroe, about 30 minutes West of the Meta site.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CamilleFarrahLenain_Fortune260324_Finals-6-e1774373785784.jpg\"\/)
Construction in progress for high voltage transmission lines on the Meta data center site in Holly Ridge.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CamilleFarrahLenain_Fortune260324_Finals-4-e1774373646868.jpg\"\/)
Mayor Friday Ellis, photographed in his town of Monroe, Louisiana.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CamilleFarrahLenain_Fortune260324_Finals-2-e1774373594836.jpg\"\/)
Water storage construction on the Meta data center site in Holly Ridge.<\/p>\n