PowerHouse and Poe Target Another 550-Acre Data Center Campus Outside Louisville, Kentucky

PowerHouse Data Centers is expanding its footprint in Kentucky with a second major campus, this time in Carrollton, a small city near the Indiana border about 50 miles northeast of Louisville. The company, in partnership with real estate firm Poe Companies, has secured options to purchase 550 acres east of Interstate 71 on Greens Bottom Road in Carroll County, where they plan to build a $9.6 billion data center project known as the Carrollton Industrial Campus.

The announcement underscores the growing demand for large-scale data center capacity in the U.S. Midwest, driven by artificial intelligence workloads and cloud computing. Kentucky’s existing utility infrastructure, including fiber optic cables and electricity availability, has made the state an increasingly attractive location for hyperscale developments. The site chosen in Carroll County sits adjacent to Carrollton Utilities’ regional wastewater treatment plant, a factor the city believes minimizes potential negative effects while providing access to necessary resources without raising local utility costs.

PowerHouse Data Centers, founded in 2022 and a wholly-owned division of American Real Estate Partners, already has a pipeline of more than 6GW of capacity across multiple states including Virginia, Texas, North Carolina, Indiana, Illinois, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. The company’s previous partnership with Poe resulted in a planned 150-acre campus south of Louisville in the Rubbertown district, where the first phase offering 130MW is expected to be operational by the end of 2026. That campus could total 400MW at full build-out across seven buildings. The Carrollton project, by comparison, is larger in acreage and investment, though full details of the planned development have not been disclosed. Any transmission upgrades needed to support the project will be paid for by the developers.

The city of Carrollton confirmed it had purchased the land in 2019 for future expansion of the treatment plant but no longer needs it. “We believe that this location is well suited for a data center, due to the poor agricultural and development qualities of the property; its location sandwiched between the Interstate and a large, regional sewage treatment plant; and the availability of resources which will not result in any increase in local utility costs,” the city said in a statement. “Further, this project will provide substantial benefit to the local community.”

Carroll County economic development director Matthew Dusing noted on LinkedIn that this is the second hyperscale data center project showing significant interest in the county. “Projects of this scale come with real considerations and the Fiscal Court is dedicated to ensuring any project that moves forward is structured well and done right for Carroll County,” he said. Poe Companies, founded in 1989 and primarily a developer of multifamily, industrial, and hospitality properties across the U.S., appears to be making its first foray into data center development with these Kentucky projects.

The city of Carrollton emphasized that given Kentucky’s utility infrastructure and the I-71 corridor’s strategic location, the state will “inevitably see one or more data centers being built.” The city added: “Accordingly, we believe that if any data center is built in Carroll County, a data center should be built at this site, because this location minimizes, if not eliminates, all of the potential [negative] effects.” The project aligns with broader industry trends where secondary markets are increasingly competing for hyperscale facilities, driven by land availability, power capacity, and community incentives.