COSHOCTON − A portion of the Conesville Industrial Park has been sold to by the Frontier Group of Companies (FGC) to Aligned Data Centers for possible future data center development.
Aligned Data Centers is involved in brownfield development, repurposing previously industrial sites into data center campuses. This approach aligns with the company’s sustainability goals and offers several benefits, including utilizing existing infrastructure, addressing environmental remediation, and providing economic stimulus to communities, according to an announcement from the Coshocton Port Authority
In September 2023, Aligned acquired property in Northeast Ohio — the location of a former automotive equipment manufacturing facility in Perkins Township, originally built during the Second World War — where it will become the site of a planned new, four-building hyperscale data center campus. The first building is already up.
Aligned has redeveloped other brownfield sites across the United States, including a former aerospace manufacturing facility in Phoenix, a shuttered semiconductor plant in the Salt Lake City metro area, and a retired newspaper printing facility in Chicagoland.
The company could not be reached for comment Tuesday morning.
The industrial park was once the site of the former American Electric Power plant that ceased operations in May 2020 after 62 years, the brownfield redevelopment site is being repurposed to become a modern destination industrial park, according to a statement from the Coshocton Port Authority.
Since initially acquiring the site in 2020, FGC has worked on plant demolition, environmental remediation including clean closure of the fly ash impoundments, and other site work over the past five years to make Conesville Industrial Park ready for Aligned Data Centers and other industrial development.
While a number of offsite improvements are required, including water, sewer and road improvements, the 2,500-acre Conesville Industrial Park is expected to offer numerous building sites and accommodate a wide range of industries.
FGC, developer of the Conesville Industrial Park, has already dedicated Energy Drive as a new public road serving it. In addition to possible data center use, representatives from such sectors as automotive, energy, logistics, and manufacturing regularly tour the site to explore potential development opportunities.
“Data centers are the backbone of the digital age, providing the infrastructure that enables telehealth, distance learning, social media, entertainment, and countless online applications and services related to business, government and healthcare,” states Tiffany Swigert, executive director of the Coshocton Port Authority. “This development is further validation that Coshocton is poised to prosper in this new economy.”
If developed, the Conesville Industrial Park data center development project would become the second Buckeye State brownfield redevelopment site for Aligned.
This article originally appeared on Coshocton Tribune: Aligned Data Centers buys property in Conesville Industrial Park. Data center planned?
Reporting by Staff Reports / Coshocton Tribune
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