Media members trek to New Albany to see data centers

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

NEW ALBANY — Local media representatives traveled to central Ohio on Wednesday to get a firsthand look at data centers.

Representatives from the VW independent, the Times Bulletin and WERT 1220AM/104.3FM made the trip to New Albany to see a massive industrial park that is home to 40 data centers, with 28 more currently under construction. Wednesday’s trip was organized by Van Wert Area Economic Development Executive Director Brent Stevens. It was similar to last week’s trip by local elected officials, including members of Van Wert City Council, and others from community. That trip was also organized by Stevens, who said the purpose of the trips was to provide a better understanding of a data center, which has become a hot button topic in Van Wert. 

“I wanted to bring people down so they can see just how beautiful the buildings are,” Stevens said. “There’s so many people that think that it’s going to be a chicken coop with these fans outside and are really noisy. I wanted to bring people down to show how responsible these data center people are with the looks of the building, the grounds and how they keep them kept up and then also bring you guys down so you can see what can happen to community when the revenue starts to come in for the property tax and pilot payments and those types of things.”

Some of the data centers in New Albany were close to residential areas and it was noted that many of them were covered at least partially by trees. According to Stevens, most data centers try to be good neighbors.

“There are some bad apples in every type of business but the good ones know they need to become part of the community and really work hard to show the community they want to give back,” he stated. “We talked with  economic development in New Albany when we did the bus trip and she talked about one company that, they see their t-shirts all over town because they actually give their employees 25 hours of PTO to out and give back to the community and that’s not an uncommon story for a lot of these data centers. They want to give back and they want to be known as somebody that’s really helping lift a community.”

One of the local concerns is noise generated by such facilities but during a stop near one of the data centers, none of the media members could hear noise coming from it.

Another local concern is water usage but as stated in the past, a closed loop system is planned for Van Wert’s proposed $10 billion data center at the Mega Site, negating the need for millions of gallons of water.

“Water is a true statement for people who don’t use closed loop systems – they use a lot of water,” he stated.

During the trip, Stevens acknowleged vocal opposition to the proposed data center and said he’s tried to address their concerns, sometimes with varying success.

“In the beginning I tried to reach out to every one of them on Facebook, invite them into my office and sit down because I want to know what their thought process is and hopefully I can alleviate some of that stress that they’re feeling,” he said. “In a lot of cases, I’ve had some opportunities to do that but the really loud vocal opponents, which are not very many, maybe 15, I’ve invited them to come into my office and sit down and talk to me. It was ‘absolutely I’m not coming in to talk to you.’ I’ve invited them to go out and meet them in the community and sit down and talk with them and it was ‘absolutely not’ so to me, that tells me that they don’t want any information that is relevant from my end to try to help persuade them.”

He added he believes much of the opposition is stoked online and via social media, including outside invididuals that are spending money to amp up the conversation.

“It’s that way even in political campaigns – they know how to go out and stir the pot because they want to see discourse,” Stevens said.

A public hearing about the data center will be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday, May 4, in the First Federal Lecture Hall at the Niswonger Performing Arts Center. Those in attendance, for or against the data center will be allotted two minutes to address Van Wert City Council. The council will then meet the following Monday, May 11, to vote on annexation and zoning for the data center.