Other than the initial construction jobs, I don' think data centers add anything to our urban fabric or tax base. Most get some sort of tax abatement. They're located on the outskirts because land costs are cheap. 

21 hours ago, Pablo said:

Other than the initial construction jobs, I don' think data centers add anything to our urban fabric or tax base. Most get some sort of tax abatement. They're located on the outskirts because land costs are cheap. 

• New Albany International Business Park land is not cheap. The New Albany Company has probably made close to $1 billion in land sales profit since 2016.
• Tax abatements are only for improvements. These companies are still paying what was being paid even with a 100% abatement.
• The construction and installation jobs don't go away when the centers are "complete". They've also bolstered our trades economy.
• The demand from these has forced upgrades and expansions of energy, transportation, and network infrastructure.
• Vertiv is a local company on the verge of becoming Fortune 500 largely because of these data centers.
• The trope that these only employ 30 is nonsense. Look at the aerial of the "completed" AWS site in New Albany. There are nearly 200 cars behind the gates. If these places had such high supply:demand of labor, their job boards probably wouldn't always have dozens of openings.
• I find it hard to believe that hundreds of communities across the US continue to lure and capture these investments with no benefit to the community.

1 hour ago, aderwent said:

• The construction and installation jobs don't go away when the centers are "complete". They've also bolstered our trades economy.

Yes and no. Construction jobs are short term work and transient. They rely on a steady state of work. If there isn’t enough work to sustain “new” jobs, then yes they will go away. Most likely they just draw resources not-locally.

1 hour ago, aderwent said:

• The trope that these only employ 30 is nonsense. Look at the aerial of the "completed" AWS site in New Albany. There are nearly 200 cars behind the gates. If these places had such high supply:demand of labor, their job boards probably wouldn't always have dozens of openings.
• I find it hard to believe that hundreds of communities across the US continue to lure and capture these investments with no benefit to the community.

I would listen to this, it covered the topic pretty well. But basically, yes these don’t create many permanent jobs. And places around the country seek them out for different reasons, one of which is hoping to spur spinoff tech jobs. But that’s not going to happen everywhere.

 

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1242229718?ft=nprml&f=1242229718

These data centers require constant maintenance and are changing quite a bit. I won’t get into details to bore people, but our local contractors who have national footprints and local footprints have to employ other people so it is ancillary jobs that are created. Yes, they may only say 30 but they probably employ 100+ if you include contractors.

The Meta property is now fully engaged in site work all the way down to Morse Road. The QTS sites look like they'll be operational by year's end. The Microsoft property continues with land improvements. Amazon has many buildings under construction north of Central College on the East side of Beech. They're all multi level buildings. Now they're clearing the land on the West side of Beech up by 62. Driving the entirety of Beech is quite the site seeing trip. Especially with the Intel cranes visible on the northern stretch.

Google continues its Central Ohio spending spree with $63M land purchase in New Albany

Google has acquired nearly 85 acres in New Albany, the company confirmed to Columbus Business First.

The tech giant paid $63 million for the property at 2565 Harrison Road NW. It purchased the land from DBT-Data, a real estate investment firm that develops data centers. DBT bought the parcel for nearly $1.6 million in January 2023, according to the Licking County Auditor.

The Harrison Road property is about 4 miles from Google's existing data center campus at 1101 Beech Road SW.

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2025/06/12/google-dbt-data-new-albany-data-center.html