This story has been updated with additional information.
The data center proposed for Norton is not moving forward.
The city on Oct. 17 posted a brief statement that the multimillion dollar project at the former PPG Mine site is dead.
The move comes just days after a contentious townhall meeting in the city where the developers were peppered with questions and faced strong opposition from a crowd of 200 or so residents.
Here is the statement from the city:
“Norton City Council is providing this update to the residents on the proposed data center project located at the PPG Mine on Limestone Drive. Following the townhall meeting on Monday, October 13th, several Council members were provided information from a concerned resident regarding certain statements made by the representative from Quantum HPC. Council members shared this information with the Law Director, who asked the developer to determine if the statements were not true. The developer determined those statements were not true and informed the city that the representative is no longer working for the developer.
“As a result, the data center project is not moving forward.”
No other details were immediately released by the city.
There were concerns raised at the meeting about previous data center proposals by the developer that did not move forward.
A spokesperson for Quantum HPC said a new development team will oversee the project in Ohio.
“The investment team has heard the concerns of the residents and will implement changes necessary to ensure that all parties that are affiliated with this effort align with our values of integrity and candor,” said Dan Williamson. “We are in the process of engaging a new development team to oversee the project. We remain committed to building a highly secure, highly efficient data center in Ohio without the negative impacts on the energy grid, natural resources and the community.”
Council President Doug DeHarpart in a statement thanked residents for sharing their concerns over the project.
“Their calm and respectful engagement with Council is a model of how our democratic system should function,” DeHarpart said.
Quantum HPC had proposed to build the data center — dubbed Project Triton — on a 90-acre site off South Cleveland-Massillon Road.
The property was once owned by PPG Industries and was a limestone mine about 50 years ago.
The proposal called for the construction of a 485,000-square-foot center, along with a 157,000-square-foot power yard with six natural gas turbines at the former limestone mine site that closed about 50 years ago.
Residents were concerned about the environmental impact the project would have on Norton and Barberton with potential noise and pollution and its drain on natural resources with its 24-hour, seven-day a week operation.
The data center, which would have been roughly the size of two Walmarts, was supposed to house computers to store and process information for AI and planning applications for business.
The proposal called for the creation of roughly 280 construction jobs at the start with another 110 full-time jobs once the data center was up and running.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Massive data center proposal on former mine site in Norton is not moving forward
Reporting by Craig Webb, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
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