PERRY TOWNSHIP — The possibility of a new data center coming to Perry Township has been known for some time, with the project discussed by township trustees back in May and again at a township trustees meeting in June, during which several township residents expressed both concerns and support for the potential facility to be located along state Route 65 between Breese and Hume Roads. What was not known at the time was which company was behind the proposal.
That question was answered Tuesday as a Microsoft blog post revealed that the longtime software and IT company was the one looking to expand into Allen County.
“Datacenters are the backbone of the Microsoft Cloud, which provides services such as Office 365, Azure, Xbox Live and Bing to millions of customers around the round,” the blog post read. “Microsoft operates more than 300 datacenters in over 34 countries and demand continues to grow as more people and businesses rely on cloud computing.”
Microsoft also touted its commitments to the communities in which their facilities reside, citing increased tax revenue for road and school improvements and investments in areas like environmental sustainability, STEM education and technology skill development.
“Several factors attracted Microsoft to Perry Township and the Lima region, including customer demand, the availability of suitable land, access to power and fiber optics, a quality workforce and supportive local partners,” the post read. “Microsoft is looking at a site that is approximately 350 acres in Perry Township. The site is currently zoned for industrial use and is undergoing a rezoning process to permit a datacenter. Microsoft currently anticipates that if developed, the site would include up to six datacenter buildings.”
That rezoning process has now included data centers in its industrial zoning language, Allen Economic Development Group President and CEO Cindy Leis said.
“That’s one step closer to building confidence that the community is willing to cooperate and be accepting of this,” she said. “Let’s face it. This is a Fortune 500 company.”
During the June meeting, several township residents voiced concerns over how a datacenter would impact their quality of life.
“We do have a beautiful rural life that was described by so many, and we chose to live here versus the more-developed Lima,” resident Steve Hunt said at the meeting. “There are industrial parks. There are other areas you could consider that would be better used for something like that and not ruin the rural living aspect.”
“I researched, and datacenters are loud and noisy,” resident Michele Kohlhorst said at the meeting. “It’s going to be affecting everybody around us, I can tell you that.”
In the blog, Microsoft tried to mitigate these concerns, saying that unlike other industrial facilities, “datacenters do not create significant noise pollution or have a substantial impact on traffic flow or congestion. Microsoft aims to build datacenters that are best in class in performance, reliability, safety, aesthetics and sustainability.”
For Leis, the fact that Microsoft was willing to reveal its interest is a positive sign for the future success of this project, but she emphasized that nothing has been signed yet. She also noted that the public will have more opportunities to learn about the proposal directly from Microsoft.
“We’re going to have a community meeting,” she said. “[The date] is still to be determined, but it’ll probably be within the next 30 days. That’s going to be a community meeting where people can come in. It’s an open house, so residents or anybody else can come in. They’ll have poster boards set up and will be talking about the details of the project.”
To read the blog post in its entirety, go to https://bit.ly/3AllCSm.
