Helena Harbor's 4,000-Acre Industrial Complex Could Transform Phillips County's Economy

A 4,000-acre industrial complex on the Mississippi River in Helena-West Helena is drawing attention from data center developers, with Garrison Data Partners marketing more than 2,000 acres of the Helena Harbor Industrial Park as a site capable of hosting 500 megawatts of powered infrastructure under a project called APOLLO.

The pitch positions Helena Harbor alongside some of the most heavily scrutinized industrial real estate in the country. Garrison Data Partners claims the site sits at the same levee crest height as facilities operated by xAI and Google, with plots and roads raised above the 500-year flood plain. The harbor itself is a two-and-a-quarter-mile, nine-foot-deep slackwater channel at Mississippi River mile 652, roughly 65 miles south of Memphis, with a 300-foot-wide channel and an additional 50 feet of berthing space along much of its length.

Garrison describes the Helena Harbor site as a "seam site" with access to three different electrical markets, a structural advantage the company says allows future tenants to draw on capacity increases across regions as new generation comes online. State tax incentives add another layer: new Arkansas legislation abates sales taxes on data center construction for up to 10 years with payroll commitments, and the company says full tax-impact abatement for the life of a facility has already been granted to nearby data centers that committed to large in-state investments.

Water supply, a critical constraint for data center cooling, is framed as a strength. The property abuts the Mississippi River directly, allowing for what Garrison calls a direct draw, and groundwater quality is described as "extremely high." The company estimates $2 million to $5 million in facility upgrades would be needed to reach cooling capacity at scale.

The site is listed as outside city limits with no zoning restrictions and no unique state-level permits required to begin construction, according to Garrison's project materials. The company also cites a labor pool of more than one million workers within 60 miles and four community colleges within 45 miles.

The industrial complex already hosts operating businesses. Envirotech, which produces liquid disinfectants for the food industry, opened at Helena Harbor in March 2015 and completed an expansion in 2019. Helm Fertilizer Company runs liquid tanks at the harbor, receiving and shipping both dry and liquid fertilizer. Norac Additives employs 100 people in the area, and long-established rail users including Cottonseed Co-Op Corporation and John Bury Cotton Warehouse have depended on the site's multimodal access for years.

That multimodal infrastructure nearly collapsed a decade ago. In mid-summer 2015, the Arkansas Midland Railroad short line was placed under embargo after falling below safety standards, threatening the businesses that relied on combined river and rail access. A $1 million renovation was assembled through contributions from the Arkansas Midland Railroad, the Phillips County Port Authority, the Delta Regional Authority, the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and the Walton Family Foundation, which provided a grant specifically covering the Port Authority's share. Economic Development Director John Edwards publicly thanked then-Governor Asa Hutchinson after the funding announcement. "Bottom line: the preservation of our railroad has and will continue to be invaluable to this community," the project's backers stated at the time.

The Helena Harbor site is listed through the Arkansas Site Selection Center with parcels available from as small as 5 acres to a maximum of 750 divisible acres. The listing, last updated December 31, 2025, identifies Robbins Field as the primary airport and ARK HWY 20 Spur as the main road approach. Utility infrastructure across the complex is still under development, according to current Helena Harbor marketing materials. Interested parties can contact Economic Development Director John C. Edwards at 870-338-6444 or johnedwardsoffice@gmail.com, or reach board member Anne Christine Fuller at the same office number.

Whether the APOLLO project converts marketing materials into construction activity will depend on power delivery agreements, environmental review and the state tax abatement commitments Garrison is citing, none of which have been independently verified through regulatory filings or interconnection studies.