LA GRANGE, Ky. — In late March, Western Hospitality Partners announced "Project Lincoln: OC Data Center," a $6 billion data center planned for Oldham County.
According to a release, it will be one of the largest private investments in Kentucky’s history.
Several residents have expressed concern.
“First and foremost, we need to slow the process down," said Tim Tipton, Oldham County resident. "We need to have at least a 90-day moratorium so we can collect the facts and we can fundamentally understand what it’s going to do. The developer can have community meetings, then we can ask them direct questions. Right now, the developers have not reached out to any of us.”
Tipton is part of a grassroots effort opposed to the planned data center at its proposed location.
“I’m not against data centers," Tipton said. "I’m not against hyper-scale data centers. What we want, though, is to have the appropriate amount of time to find the appropriate locations in the county."
"Putting it in an agricultural and residential community, that affects an elementary school, the fiscal court, this beautiful downtown. It's just not appropriate.”"Putting it in an agricultural and residential community, that affects an elementary school, the fiscal court, this beautiful downtown. It's just not appropriate.”
“I think the biggest point of our grassroots opposition to this is that not only does this bring this to our backyard, this sets the precedent that everybody in the county could have one in their backyard, too, because they will not need to go through a zoning change," added Olivia Tipton, Tim's wife.
Plans call for the data center to be built on a 267-acre site along North Highway 53. A one-sheet on the project provided by RunSwitch PR said once fully operational, "Project Lincoln: OC Data Center" will create more than 150 jobs with an average salary over $80,000, generate millions in annual Oldham County taxes and benefit services such as Oldham County Schools and public libraries.
“More than anything, the opposition to this we’re seeing is the location of the project and the process that we’re watching unfold on the local level as well as the state level," said State Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield, whose district is where the center will be built. "Location, number one, is the biggest issue. Process is the next biggest issue."
"Transparency is so valuable for a community to have buy-in, and we’re really not seeing that.”
“The county government, this was sort of dropped on us," said David Voegele, Oldham County judge executive. "We didn’t go out and recruit it. It just came to us. They identified us as an area they would like to be."
"We've tried to work with it. But we’re also very well aware of the opposition that’s come up. I’m not saying that I’m in favor of or opposed to a data center in Oldham County. The particular location has run into quite a bit of opposition, and we’re hearing it. We’re not here to push something on people they don’t want. We’re actually trying to work with the company to encourage them to consider other locations in Oldham County.”
“We’ve actually asked the company, Western Hospitality Partners, to withdraw their application from the next technical review committee meeting and push that forward. We’ll continue to discuss this, and they can bring it forward at a future TRC meeting, if they choose to do so. Or they may listen to what we’ve encouraged them to consider other locations in the county. We have a couple places where I think it could fit.”
In a Facebook post, Voegele said Western Hospitality Partners has accepted a request to postpone a presentation before the Oldham County Technical Review Committee until May or later. He added the WHP development team plans on hosting a series of meetings to provide information to the public about the project and its potential effects.
