An affiliate of the tech giant that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other social media sites spent the holiday season gobbling up hundreds of acres in western Licking County – the majority of it separate from its existing data center campus in New Albany.
Sidecat, an affiliate of Meta, spent $167.4 million during its shopping spree to purchase about 429 acres in New Albany and Jersey Township between Dec. 24 and Jan. 2, according to the Licking County Auditor’s website.
A Meta spokesperson said in a Jan. 16 statement to The Dispatch that it has no plans for the recently acquired land. The company already has a sprawling data center campus nearby. New Albany has become a hotbed for data centers with more than 40 already built, with more announced and coming online.
“We occasionally purchase available land in the event that our future business needs may require it. We currently have no plans to build on this land,” the Meta statement reads.
The city of New Albany spokesperson Josh Poland wrote in an email to The Dispatch that the northeastern suburb is not aware of Meta’s plans for additional land.
The newly acquired land is primarily in two areas: 312.4 acres east of Mink Street, north of Beaver Road NW, and south of Jug Street in Jersey Township, and 114.7 acres west of Clover Valley Road, north of Briscoe Parkway, and north and west of Harrison Road NW in the city of New Albany.
In the Clover Valley Road area, the technology company has now amassed nearly 690 contiguous acres as it already purchased 373.35 acres along Miller and Green Chapel roads in September for $130 million and 200.97 acres on Green Chapel Road in December 2024 for $61 million, county property records show.
The entire 690-acre site is north of Briscoe Parkway, west of Clover Valley Road and south of Green Chapel Road. The site is directly across Clover Valley Road from Intel’s $28 billion semiconductor manufacturing plant currently under construction. Intel has hit a string of setbacks on the project, and is now expected to start producing microchips in 2030 or 2031.
All the properties are either individual, single-family homes or undeveloped farmland.
None of the acquired properties are adjacent to Meta’s existing data center at 1500 Beech Road. The parcels along Clover Valley Road are about six miles north of the Beech Road site, while the Mink Street site is about 4.5 miles northeast.
Meta’s Beech Road campus consists of 766 acres, including seven parcels totaling 33.01 acres the company purchased between April 1 and Dec. 26. The seven properties are also single-family homes and farmland.
Sidecat buys up hundreds of acres
Sidecat started its recent land acquisitions on Dec. 24 by purchasing the 114.7 acres along Clover Valley Road and Harrison Road for $41.8 million.
The company spent $625,000 on Dec. 26 to acquire a 2-acre Morse Road property that is adjacent to its existing data center campus at 1500 Beech Road.
Then, on Dec. 29, it spent $72.1 million on two parcels on Mink and Jug streets totaling 180.57 acres. It bought another 14 parcels along Mink and Jug streets totaling 131.83 acres for $52.7 million on Jan. 2.
The Mink Street site is in Jersey Township and the parcels are east of the roadway, which means the land can only be annexed into the city of New Albany with Jersey Township’s approval after the two local governments signed an economic agreement in October 2024. The pact was meant to promote quality community development and sound infrastructure planning in the township as western Licking County’s development boom continues.
Meta’s data center expansion in New Albany
Since opening its New Albany data center campus in 2017, Meta has continued to expand. The site is now projected to house a gigawatt “supercluster” that CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote in July 2025 is expected to come online in 2026 and will likely be the world’s first online gigawatt data center.
To power its data centers, Meta is turning to nuclear power. The tech giant has purchase agreements with two other nuclear energy companies to revive Ohio’s only two nuclear power plants — Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station near Toledo and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant near Cleveland, both located on the shores of Lake Erie.
Meta and a California-based nuclear reactor company announced Jan. 9 it will build reactors in southern Ohio. The partnership will allow Meta to pay for as many as 16 Oklo-made advanced, small nuclear reactors by 2034 to power data centers, and other uses in southern Ohio.
This story was updated with additional graphics and statements from Meta and the city of New Albany.
Delaware County and eastern Columbus suburbs reporter Maria DeVito can be reached at mdevito@dispatch.com and @mariadevito13.dispatch.com on Bluesky and @MariaDeVito13 on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Meta spends $167 million buying 429 acres in New Albany, Jersey Township
Reporting by Maria DeVito, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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