A $1 billion data center in Lewis Center could join the Orange Township joint economic development district (JEDD).
Worthington City Council and Orange Township trustees are expected to vote in early December on adding the center at 6787 Green Meadows Drive to the district. It would be the sixth property in the JEDD.
Once built, data centers generally employ relatively small numbers of people. The data center on a 28-acre site is expected to generate about $2.5 million to $3 million annually in payroll, Assistant City Manager David McCorkle told city council.
Townships can’t directly collect income taxes under Ohio law, but they can partner with cities to levy taxes within specific districts, McCorkle told The Dispatch after the meeting.
“Orange Township is a neighbor of ours. Instead of competing against Orange Township for a data center, we’re partnering with Orange Township to help create a revenue stream that makes sense for them and we get a piece of it just for participating,” McCorkle said.
Since Worthington itself doesn’t have as much room to grow, he added that partnering with townships that have more space can help the city grow its revenue.
The township would get 75% of the income taxes and Worthington gets 25%. That would amount to about $19,000 annually for the city, McCorkle told city council during a public hearing Nov. 17.
Cologix, a data center company headquartered in Denver, purchased the parcel for nearly $7 million in April 2024, according to Delaware County Auditor data.
Cologix describes the project on the company website as an “AI-ready data center that will provide high-density, ultra-low latency and sustainable infrastructure for hyperscalers, service providers and enterprises.” The power would come from an AEP substation.
The company already has four buildings in the Worthington Village North neighborhood that is technically in the city of Columbus but in the Worthington City School District. It is also planning to invest $7 billion into eight data centers in Johnstown.
The parcel in Lewis Center, zoned for commercial land, is close to some apartments and a single-family development, as well as some manufacturing.
No members of the public spoke at the meeting and none of the council members remarked about the project. Council will vote on a resolution at the Dec. 1 meeting.
Orange Township will also hold a public hearing Nov. 19 and a resolution will be coming before the trustees in the next few weeks, said Robin Duffee, the township’s director of development and zoning.
The new site is also getting property tax breaks from Delaware County because of its location in a Community Reinvestment Act area, as well as an exemption on sales taxes for construction materials.
Duffee said that the company agreed to be part of the JEDD as a part of the overall economic development package. The funding is not appropriated for a specific purpose, he said, but emergency services are important for projects such as data centers.
The JEDD with Orange Township has five businesses already and this would be the first data center in the district.
Anna Lynn Winfrey covers the northwestern suburbs for the Columbus Dispatch. She can be reached at awinfrey@dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: New data center in Lewis Center could join district allowing income tax collection
Reporting by Anna Lynn Winfrey, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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