Proposal undergoes first reading.
A data center could be built just northeast of New Carlisle, Indiana.
First reported by WSBT, the petition underwent its first reading at the St. Joseph County council on May 13. It proposes to rezone a land parcel measuring approximately 1,057 acres from agricultural to industrial use. The proposed site is located below the Chicago Trail between Spruce Road and Walnut Road.
The petition will be assigned to the Land Use Planning Committee, followed by the Area Plan Commission for a recommendation. The county council will then need to provide final approval for the rezoning.
The land parcel currently belongs to Mall-O-Manor LLC and Randall, Betty, and Scott Szczypiorski.
There is minimal information about the potential purchaser/operator. As reported by the South Bend Tribune, the address, listed as 80 Broad Street, FL 18, New York, also belongs to an operator building a facility in Pennsylvania.
In the same meeting, the council voted 9-0 to rezone 40 acres of land to industrial use, allowing Microsoft to enlarge a planned data center campus that would have been 929 acres large. Public opposition was expressed in spite of the unanimous vote.
Indiana has received much attention from other large players like Amazon, Google, and Meta, and the state has projected significant growth in peak load capacity as a result. The state also does not disclose the value of foregone tax subsidies for data centers, according to a report from Good Jobs First.
