The Kraft Group’s $16 billion proposal to build the country’s fourth largest data center is facing intense pushback from residents in the small Worcester County town.

The Sutton community showed out in force for the Tuesday night Select Board meeting, showing passionate and often rowdy opposition to the $16.75 billion proposal.

“Kill it now!” a chorus of chanting voices shouted as the Select Board attempted to move away from public forum Tuesday night.

The first Select Board meeting follows the release of the proposal from the Kraft Group and Unified Global Packaging Group for a data center campus on a property off Boston Road and Providence Road in Sutton.

The estimated $16.75 billion project – which the developers note is “several times the $2.8 billion in assessed value of all property in Sutton today” – would complete two buildings by 2029 and two more each year through 2033 in the small town, ultimately constructing what would become potentially the fourth largest data center in the U.S.

The fully-constructed campus would draw 900 megawatts of power.

The town manager proposal presentation’s “deliberately conservative values” estimates the project would raise $10.4 million in property tax a year starting in fiscal 2031 and $27.8 million a year with all 10 buildings built in fiscal 2035, coming out to “about $2,300 less for the average single-family home in FY2031 and about $5,800 less in FY2035.”

Community members expressing universal skepticism had a lot of questions for the Select Board and town officials Tuesday, with one noting the project represents a “generational change that would redefine what Sutton is.”

Issues raised and then echoed by several board members included the complexity in negotiating a deal with the rapidly developing AI market, protections for homeowners, health impacts, power grid risks, water sources and much more.

One woman used her two minutes just to play a recording of the noise a data center made from nearby homes.