{"id":205384,"date":"2026-04-29T21:06:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T02:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=205384"},"modified":"2026-04-29T21:06:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T02:06:42","slug":"media-members-trek-to-new-albany-to-see-data-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/04\/29\/media-members-trek-to-new-albany-to-see-data-centers\/","title":{"rendered":"Media members trek to New Albany to see data centers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is one of 40 operating data centers in New Albany seen by local media members on Wednesday. 28 more are currently under construction there. Scott Truxell\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEW ALBANY — Local media representatives traveled to central Ohio on Wednesday to get a firsthand look at data centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Representatives from the VW independent<\/em>, the Times Bulletin<\/em> 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\u2019s trip was organized by Van Wert Area Economic Development Executive Director Brent Stevens. It was similar to last week\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to bring people down so they can see just how beautiful the buildings are,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cThere\u2019s so many people that think that it\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere 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,\u201d he stated. \u201cWe 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\u2019s 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\u2019s really helping lift a community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another local concern is water usage but as stated in the past, a closed loop system is planned for Van Wert\u2019s proposed $10 billion data center at the Mega Site, negating the need for millions of gallons of water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWater is a true statement for people who don\u2019t use closed loop systems \u2013 they use a lot of water,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the trip, Stevens acknowleged vocal opposition to the proposed data center and said he\u2019s tried to address their concerns, sometimes with varying success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 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\u2019re feeling,\u201d he said. \u201cIn a lot of cases, I\u2019ve had some opportunities to do that but the really loud vocal opponents, which are not very many, maybe 15, I\u2019ve invited them to come into my office and sit down and talk to me. It was \u2018absolutely I\u2019m not coming in to talk to you.\u2019 I\u2019ve invited them to go out and meet them in the community and sit down and talk with them and it was \u2018absolutely not\u2019 so to me, that tells me that they don\u2019t want any information that is relevant from my end to try to help persuade them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that way even in political campaigns \u2013 they know how to go out and stir the pot because they want to see discourse,\u201d Stevens said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-topstory"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 04:19:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205384"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205392,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205384\/revisions\/205392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}