There will not be a data center in a site considered for a planned unit development petition that was withdrawn earlier this year.
Hancock County Commissioners told a packed Commissioners Court on Wednesday afternoon that they would not support a proposed data center on 775 acres of currently zoned agricultural property in Buck Creek Township, immediately east of Indianapolis and right next to popular family farm Tuttle Orchards.
“As many of you know, this board was approached earlier this year to consider incentives and the rezone of a property for a data center,” Commissioner Bill Spalding said in a statement at the meeting. “After numerous presentations, public meetings, a site visit and overall due diligence, it is the view of this board that there are other areas of the county that are zoned for data centers, and we do not believe the proposed site is the right location for this project. We will not be moving forward with incentives or rezoning on this project.”
Spalding also added that there are areas in the county comprehensive plan that are marked either as industrial or as business park where a data center would be more appropriate.
If the proposed rezone had been approved by the county plan commission, the commissioners would have had final say on whether the rezone and the project were to go forward. The commissioners’ shutdown of the proposal at the Buck Creek Township location looks to be the final nail in the coffin for Surge Development’s proposal, which it withdrew in May to focus on finding end users for the project.
Surge is led by Chris King, a developer out of Shelbyville who was appointed to the Indiana Economic Development Corp. by Gov. Mike Braun last month. A couple of days after King’s appointment, the IEDC approved $168 million in tax incentives for four data centers, including one named “Project Redline” in Hancock County, but without naming where it would be in the county.
The commissioners’ decision to shut down plans for the location follows other rejections in the state. In April, commissioners in Kosciusko County unanimously voted down a proposal to rezone over 500 acres of agricultural land to build a new data center, saying it was not a reasonable location for that use. In March, the city of Valparaiso put the brakes on exploring a proposed data center on land that was supposed to be a sports complex.