A data center planned for Hobart, Indiana, has been given the green light by the city's council.

First reported by NWI Times, the Hobart City Council voted unanimously to approve a rezoning for a data center located on 61st Avenue.

The data center, proposed by Hobart Devco, LLC., will comprise six buildings on an 168-acre parcel, roughly half a mile from the roadway’s intersection with Colorado Street.

The project will also feature six smaller support buildings and an 11-acre detention pond. Plans also include a raised landscape berm and fence to screen the complex from the nearby road.

The parcel is currently owned by Ewen Deep River Farm, according to property records. It is unclear who is behind the Hobart Devco LLC project.

The land had been zoned for a single-to-four family residential development and will be converted to a light industrial designation. If the data center project does not go forward, it will move back to residential zoning.

In January, the Hobart Plan Commission first approved the zone change. At the time, residents expressed environmental concerns and problems surrounding traffic. The residents also did not believe the data center would support economic development, as cited by The Indiana Economic Digest.

A Facebook Group dubbed No Re-Zone has been set up by Hobart locals in opposition to the rezoning.

The parcel was previously rezoned by the city in 2022 for a six-building warehouse complex by Becknell Industrial, but the deal fell through when LaGrange was unable to find a tenant for the property.

Hobart is located in the northeast corner of Indiana, some 40 miles from Chicago in Illinois. Microsoft operates a data center around 30 miles from Hobart in La Porte.

Last year, a report from CBRE flagged Northern Indiana as a key emerging market in meeting increasing demand for capacity in the US. Meta, US Signals, DataBank, Netrality, and Digital Crossroads all have a presence in Indiana.