Vantage Data Centers is asking to rezone 618 acres of farmland for a data center development in Pittsboro, Indiana.
The company wants to rezone the Smith Family Farms land as "warehouse industrial," and intends to use 285 acres of the parcel for data center development. Plans for the remaining land have not been shared.
The parcel is currently owned by Charles D. Smith Family Farm Incorporated and is located in the northeast part of the town, just north of Interstate 74 and west of County Road 500 East.
At least three data center buildings will be developed, one of which is expected to be a 256MW facility while the other two will be 96MW and 48MW data centers. The project is expected to bring 100 full-time jobs to the area.
The company intends to use a cooling method that would not see significant water usage and is exploring either an air-to-air cooling or air-cooled glycol-based system.
DCD has reached out to Vantage for more information about the project, including the size of buildings, and timeline expectations for the project should it be approved.
Locals voiced some concerns about the project during a recent meeting. Resident Jacy Robling said: "I will walk out my back patio and I will see it. I think that the biggest problem is, I don’t really know how it’s going to affect me because there seems to be a little bit of secrecy.”
Robling added concerns about the potential risk to local water, and the possibility that it might lower property values for residents.
In a letter, the Town of Pittsboro has specified that the data center's electrical source will be separate from other residential and commercial properties in the area, will also be making improvements to country roads nearby, and aims to "exceed landscape buffering requirements" including planting mature trees to help with "secluding their structures."
The rezoning request is set to be discussed by the Pittsboro Planning Commission on February 25, and will then go to the Pittsboro Town Council.
Pittsboro is a town in Middle Township, Hendricks County, Indiana, and lies around 24 miles northwest of Indianapolis, the state's main data center hub. To the south in Morgan County, a 391-acre site is being considered for a data center development by an unnamed company.
Vantage Data Centers currently operates 35 data center campuses in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia. and Australia. Its US sites are in Arizona, California, Ohio, Virginia and Washington state. Across the pond, Vantage applied to develop a 10-building data center campus in the UK at a former Ford car factory in January 2025. That same month, the company topped out its first data center in Osaka, Japan.
Vantage signed an agreement with VoltaGrid earlier this month to deploy 1GW of off-grid natural gas generation across its North American portfolio. The partnership will leverage VoltaGrid's natural gas microgrid, which will be integrated into Vantage's data centers as its primary power source.
