Opinion & Analysis
May 18, 2026 — Protect Grove City
Buckle up, Grove City. This is a long one. I’m converting a Facebook post for use here on the site, so removing some of the extraneous info… So here we go.
Over the past several weeks, members of our community have been raising concerns about a proposed 300+ acre industrial data center on Rensch Road. This facility would run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with constant noise from servers and massive rooftop cooling units. Homes, farms, businesses, the Autumn Grove subdivision, and Story Point Retirement and Assisted Living are all close enough to feel every bit of it… whether they want to or not.
Small scale data centers have always existed and are necessary. But the facilities being introduced today… 25 megawatts and above, built to power AI infrastructure… are a different animal entirely, with documented harsher impacts on the environment and nearby residents.
Progress Grove City recently hosted “Ask the Experts: Datacenters,” a public town hall featuring five independent credentialed experts: Becca Pollard, Executive Director of Buckeye Environmental Network; Cathy Cowan Becker, Board President of Save Ohio Parks; Dr. Amber McNair, former OSU city planning professor and National Academies of Science researcher; Maureen Willis, Director of Ohio’s Office of Consumers’ Counsel, the state agency that advocates for your utility rates; and Bailey Sandin, Work and Wages researcher at Policy Matters Ohio. These professionals have no stake in the outcome. What they told us wasn’t speculation. It was grounded in what has already happened in communities across Ohio and the country. (the video of that event is available HERE)
Here’s what residents are actually asking… and what our experts confirmed:
The “air cooled” reassurance may mean nothing. Headwaters is a site acquisition firm. They identify land and hand it off. They don’t build or operate data centers. As Becca Pollard told our town hall: “We’re so early in the process… I really question how much they can promise based on not yet having permits, not knowing who the customer is going to be.” When Headwaters says “air cooled,” where is that commitment documented in a way that’s legally binding on the actual operator? A slide in a presentation means nothing once the land changes hands.
“Air cooled” doesn’t mean quiet. The noise source isn’t the water. It’s industrial fans, HVAC systems, and backup diesel generators running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Dr. Amber McNair noted that peer-reviewed research links chronic noise and vibration exposure to sleep disruption, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and reduced cognitive development in children. Residents at our town hall also raised infrasound… low-frequency sound below the range of human hearing that we feel rather than hear, linked to anxiety, heart issues, and seizures in communities near data centers. When residents asked Headwaters employees about infrasound at their own public meeting, not one had ever heard the term.
Research shows data center noise can be heard two miles away, with the worst impacts within 3,000 feet. From the proposed Rensch Road site, that radius reaches past Our Lady of Perpetual Help on Broadway and onto the grounds of Grove City and Central Crossing High Schools. Seven Grove City schools are confirmed inside that radius: Beulah Park Middle School, Hayes Intermediate School, J.C. Sommer Elementary, South-Western Career Academy, Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, Central Crossing High School, and Pleasant View Middle School. Two more… Bolton Crossing Elementary and Grove City High School… sit right on the edge. Think about what chronic 24/7 industrial noise means for the families in Autumn Grove, the residents of Story Point right next door, and the children in every one of those schools. This is not a Ward 1 problem. This is a Grove City problem. Every ward in our city is affected… because every ward’s children go to these schools.
If you want to see how that sound might impact you, check this link where you can zoom in and see what’s in the highest impact areas.
Click here for the Sound Impact Map
Ohio HB 15 strips local control… permanently. Cathy Cowan Becker of Save Ohio Parks, who lives in Hilliard and watched this happen firsthand, explained that HB 15 created a 45-day fast track for data center operators to build on-site gas power plants… with no public notice, no public hearing, and no local approval required. The Ohio Power Siting Board decides. Your city council does not. As Cathy put it: “If you approve a data center, you’re very likely to get a gas plant of some sort, and you won’t have a say over that.” The Hilliard plant… a 73-megawatt fracked gas fuel cell, the largest in North America… is now going in next to a subdivision, a park, and an elementary school. It will emit 1.5 million pounds of CO2 per day. That’s the equivalent of parking 66,000 gas-powered cars right there and letting them run around the clock. The city had NO SAY.
Your utility rates are at risk. Maureen Willis, whose office represents Grove City residents in AEP rate proceedings, was direct: data centers use as much power as a small city, and the costs of infrastructure upgrades don’t disappear… they get passed to residents. “We don’t want to have consumers left with the costs that these big data centers incur and then leave.” AEP customers have some protections others in Ohio don’t, but Maureen was clear those protections are not a panacea.
The zoning argument may not hold up. We’ve been told Grove City’s zoning doesn’t allow data centers. But Grove City Codified Ordinances § 1135.14(i)(10) specifically allows for “other uses approved by the Planning Commission” under PUD-I. Residents have also raised whether the city attorney advising council on this matter already represents other communities that have approved data centers. These are questions that deserve straight answers.
The tax benefit picture isn’t what it’s being sold as. Bailey Sandin noted that in fiscal year 2026-27, Ohio will forego more than $140 million annually in sales tax revenue from data center companies. Permanent jobs on site? Headwaters told residents approximately 30 per building. Their own economic representative cited salaries around $75,000… with no guarantee those workers come from our community.
We also know that conversations between developers and city officials have apparently been happening since at least October… while residents were kept in the dark until regular citizens started making noise.
And while Grove City council continues to wait and see… the townships have already acted. Pleasant Township has had a moratorium in place for some time. Tonight, Jackson Township voted for a one year moratorium as well. Both of the townships directly impacted by this proposed development have looked at the same information Grove City has access to… and they said pause. Our own city council has yet to do the same. At what point does “wait for a proposal” become an answer in itself?
I have talked to Republicans and Democrats. Farmers and suburbanites. Lifelong Grove City residents and newer neighbors. Township residents who didn’t even choose to be in Grove City’s orbit. People who agree on almost nothing politically.
The only person I have encountered who is enthusiastic about this project is the Headwaters attorney.
Everyone else… and I mean everyone… wants a pause.
That doesn’t mean everyone in that group is a hard no on development. But every single one of them wants Grove City to make the most informed decision possible… with full transparency, real answers, and the time to get it right.
In just the past few days, nearly 3000 people have signed the petition calling for a moratorium. That’s not a fringe group. That’s not a political organization. That’s Grove City… and the community around it… speaking in a unified voice that is very hard to dismiss.
I’ve heard the mayor invoke past “hard votes” as justification for moving forward over public objection. With respect… a distribution center and a 300+ acre AI data center are not the same decision. One moves boxes. The other potentially brings an industrial gas power plant the city cannot stop, chronic noise and vibration next to homes and a retirement community, permanent infrastructure costs passed to residents, and a loss of local control that cannot be undone. A hard vote isn’t hard because it’s unpopular. It’s hard because the consequences are permanent. That’s exactly why a pause is the right call here.
I’ve also heard rumors that this developer may be dangling the prospect of two new schools and a rec center… things our community has been asking for and deserves. I want those things. But I have to ask the question: what good are new schools if the children sitting in them are breathing compromised air, losing sleep to industrial noise, and developing health problems from chronic vibration and infrasound? What good is a rec center if the community around it is paying higher utility bills and footing infrastructure costs for a trillion dollar company? Grove City deserves schools and rec centers. We deserve them on our own terms… not as a sweetener to get us to stop asking questions.
Here’s what I genuinely don’t understand about the council’s position:
A moratorium… a temporary pause, not a permanent no… costs council nothing. As a matter of fact, It clearly says to residents: we hear you, and we want to get this right. As Dr. McNair told the town hall, communities need to act before leverage disappears… because once land is purchased, the question shifts from “if” to “how do we mitigate the damage.”
Why wouldn’t council jump at the chance to pause, do this right, and show Grove City voters they put our community first? A moratorium isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of leadership. It’s the kind of decision voters remember.
We are not saying no forever. We are saying slow down. We are not saying no to development. We are saying we refuse to pay for this thing through our utility bills, our tax dollars, or our children’s health. Grove City deserves answers before a decision this permanent gets made for us.
Grove City deserves better than “wait for a proposal and trust us.”
I’ll keep asking questions. I know you will too. And I hope council will start answering them.
Here’s how you can help right now:
Sign the petition. If you haven’t already, add your name to the 2,813 Grove City residents calling for a moratorium: https://c.org/gKWSDQcqm5 Note: the petition site will try to ask you for a donation after you sign… just skip past all that. Your signature is what matters.
Show up on May 18th (TONIGHT) Grove City Council meets at 7pm. Come and let them see you. You don’t have to speak. You don’t have to do anything but be there. But when that room is full of residents who care about this community, it sends a message that no Facebook post can match.
Join the movement. This fight belongs to all of Grove City… not just one group, not just one ward. Thousands of your neighbors are organizing, asking hard questions, and demanding that our city take the time to get this right. Visit ProtectGroveCity.org for the facts, the research, and the tools to make your voice heard. And find the Facebook page at Protect Grove City to stay connected as this develops. These are new tools coming on line, so stay engaged and be patient…there will be PLENTY of info coming down the pipe!!
Grove City deserves better than “wait for a proposal and trust us.”
Protect Grove City!
