Northwest Ohio is looking at an explosion of data centers in the next two years as technology companies and site selectors zero in on the region as a potential crossroads for the energy sources required to power the facilities.
Oregon is set to be an early beneficiary of the frenzy as the city is in talks with a site selector about a billion-plus dollar facility that could provide the city and school with an additional $5 million in tax revenue each year, Mayor Mike Seferian said.
The proposed data center will be located on 168 acres of land near Corduroy and Wynn roads and have as many as eight buildings at several hundred thousand square feet each.
The city of Oregon purchased the parcels for an industrial site for $9 million a year ago, but, when the deal fell through, site selector Capacity LLC approached the city and said it was interested in developing the site into a data center. In November, city council approved a $17.4 million purchase agreement for the property and set into motion the due diligence period for the development.
Capacity isn’t the only company that’s waiting in line for data centers in the region. Mayor Seferian said there are other companies on standby, waiting to see if the deal falls through.
He doesn’t think that’s likely.
“I’m nearly at 99 percent belief that this is going to happen here,” Mayor Seferian said. “We’re both at 100 percent go, and everything that we think can be delivered for their needs, we believe will happen — and they believe it will happen.
“I bet you there will be communities around us that will be envious to think that we just hit the Powerball lottery,” Mayor Seferian said.
But neighboring communities may not need to wait long for their shot at hitting the jackpot.
Site selectors are actively looking for new places to put the notoriously power-hungry facilities that reduce reliance on stressed electrical grids.
Gary Thompson, executive vice president at the Regional Growth Partnership, said the abundance of energy and natural gas pipelines in northwest Ohio is a key factor that has site selectors swarming the area.
“Certainly within the next 12 months, we will see data centers erupting in northwest Ohio. ... There are other data center projects and people that are in the area trying to assemble sites and figure out their plans.” Mr. Thompson said. “These folks are in our market and they’re conducting their studies, and I think you’ll see a few of these move forward within the next 12 months.”
Power driving the frenzy
“To pique a data center’s interest, really the only thing we need to talk about is power,” Mr. Thompson said.
Data centers are essentially buildings full of computer servers that form the infrastructure necessary to support every aspect of the internet. They run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and technology companies prioritize zero downtime and require several layers of backup to keep the servers online.
The energy demands of the always-online facilities have created problems across the country, and even in Ohio. In January, a long-term load forecast by grid operator PJM warned that capacity shortages because of “proliferation of data centers” could come as soon as June, 2026.
Will Turner is the managing director of site selection for Capacity, which began looking at the Oregon data center site last summer. Mr. Turner said his team began realizing that energy generation, not reliance on the grid, would be necessary to support data centers into the future.
“We looked at a number of different energy sources, and the only one we really felt had the ability to keep up with [artificial intelligence], ... which is using orders of magnitude more power than conventional servers, was natural gas,” Mr. Turner said.
Natural gas pipelines that run through northwest Ohio provide readily available supplies for energy generation, reducing the reliance of the facilities on power from the electric grid. Mr. Thompson said the grid in the area is also built to withstand large amounts of electricity transmission from coal power plants that have now gone offline, freeing space for new users.
“From our strategy standpoint, we are not trying to take down existing power off the grid,” Mr. Turner said. “If we’re bringing in a large load, we need to bring in large generation, and we need to work with the utility and alleviate concerns within the community.”
The Oregon facility will use three clusters of 12 natural gas generators, which will eventually generate 828 megawatts of power, according to Capacity’s website. While exact details of the site are yet to be determined, Mr. Turner said, construction costs are anticipated to exceed $1 billion.
Mr. Thompson said he has visited several data centers across the country and they look like a modern manufacturing campus, or even a college campus. He said the companies that construct the centers generally don’t want to stick out.
“They really want to blend into the landscape. It’s a data center — a highly secure business. If they could build them and nobody would know the address of them, they would probably prefer that,” he said.
Oregon Mayor Seferian said the data center could provide “well in excess” of $5 million in yearly tax revenue for the city and the school district through an agreement for payment in lieu of property taxes. While the deal has not yet been finalized, Mayor Seferian said he’s confident that it will become a reality.
Communities around county see ‘double-win’
Lucas County is aware of the buzz surrounding the region, and the county’s economic development director, Matt Heyrman, said he and other economic development officials are talking with communities that are interested in attracting the centers. Whether that preparation will pay off is anybody’s guess, but Mr. Heyrman said they are starting to put those pieces in place early.
“There are a bunch of townships and areas of our county that are working toward the infrastructure and zoning ... to make that happen, but they’re not real projects yet. They’re just not there yet,” Mr. Heyrman said.
One of those preparations is a study that would explore the cost of extending water and sewer expansion into western Lucas County, approved by the Lucas County commissioners at their meeting Tuesday. The $40,000 study, Mr. Heyrman said, was commissioned in response to interest from site selectors in paying for the infrastructure improvements.
“The double-win for us, and the reason why we are very interested in it, is these companies are indicating that they’re willing to pay for those sewer and water extensions,” Mr. Heyrman said.
The contract identifies specific areas of interest, including areas in Spencer Township adjacent to Bancroft Street, areas in Richfield and Sylvania townships adjacent to Central Avenue, and areas in Waterville and Monclova townships. The study will also explore areas in Fulton County, south of Central Avenue.
In Monclova Township, a zoning amendment to allow data centers as conditional uses in agricultural/residential districts will come before the Lucas County Plan Commission for a vote in the next week.
Mr. Thompson also said data centers give townships, which have a limited ability to generate revenue from taxes, a “rare opportunity” to fund services that are becoming harder to provide.
“It provides enough revenue for [townships] to remain rural for a very long time and to do things like have sheriff’s deputies in your community, pave roads, support your school systems, and do all the things they don’t have the revenue to do now,” he said.
First Published March 21, 2025, 11:55 p.m.
