Data center interested in Pataskala Job Ready Site?

• The site remains empty, but an applicant filed a rezoning application.
• The application references a possible data center.
• Pataskala’s planning and zoning commission is set to consider the application.

PATASKALA – The city continues to field interest, the latest from a data center, in its vacant corporate park.

Members of the Pataskala Planning and Zoning Commission are scheduled to meet March 4 to consider an application to rezone 212 acres inside the park from planned manufacturing uses to a planned development district.

A staff report on the request indicates the rezoning is for a data center at the Job Ready Site.

The news comes on the heels of a Feb. 20 meeting in which the park’s Joint Economic Development District board met to discuss the potential development of the property. During the meeting, the board met behind closed doors in executive session to discuss a potential economic development opportunity. Afterward, the board voted to retain legal counsel to consult on potential economic development incentives for the park.

Pataskala City Administrator BJ King said the city does not know much about the zoning application aside from what is outlined in it.

“We don’t know a whole lot about it,” he said. “We know they filed the zoning application, and at this point, that’s all we know.”

Dan Evers, director of the county’s economic development engine, Grow Licking County Community Improvement Corporation, also said he could not comment in detail on the request.

“Grow Licking County and the county and Pataskala have continued to advance this property as an option for multiple users, and it is under consideration currently by more than one type of potential user and they are in different stages of evaluation and doing due diligence,” Evers said. “This simply represents one stage of due diligence.”

The privately owned park is on about 500 acres south of Broad Street, east of Mink Street and north of Refugee Road.

Columbus attorney Jill Tangeman submitted the rezoning application on behalf of the owners of the property, Red Chip Farms Inc.

It contains a preliminary development plan showing the 212-acre site would stand inside a state-approved Job Ready Site located south of Broad Street and west of Etna Parkway. It would abut the West Licking Joint Fire District’s Mink Street fire station.

The data center, according to the plan, would contain two buildings.

Pataskala Planning Director Scott Fulton, in his staff report on the application, wrote the proposed buildings would have a maximum height of 65 feet. In addition, the data center would use backup generators, but the maximum noise level emanating from the site would not exceed 72 decibels, as measured from the property line, according to Fulton’s report.

The project would need to meet the city’s requirements for signage, lighting, screening and landscaping, Fulton further noted in his report.

It is not uncommon for city, county and state officials to remain mum about potential development projects. They do not want to chase away potential jobs and tax dollars.

In his report, Fulton referenced the fact Pataskala likely is competing against other communities for the data center project.

The applicant asked for the planned development district zoning window to remain open for a longer period of time. It usually expires after one year without the submission of a final development plan, but Fulton wrote in his review that the applicant asked for the window to remain open for three years “due to the fact that they are exploring multiple locations across the country.”

Regardless of the competition, King remains optimistic the privately owned park is primed for development.

“Just to be able to get one anchor development out there ...” King said. “I think everyone realizes it takes just one go get the corporate park to start developing.”