LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Oldham County’s top legislative body will hire a consultant to study a proposed $6 billion data center even though elected officials don’t plan to vote on the project.
The county’s fiscal court held a closed session at its meeting Tuesday to discuss the tech campus envisioned off Ky. 53 known as “Project Lincoln,” voting later to bring on the consultant.
In response to a resident’s question, Oldham Judge-Executive David Voegele confirmed that the county’s appointed board of adjustments will be the only local agency with decision-making power because developers are seeking a special permit instead of a zoning change.
But in remarks at the end of the meeting, Voegele urged residents to “be patient” about a project that has become a flashpoint since it was announced late last week. For his part, Voegele said he’s been aware of the proposal for about three weeks.
“We have a long way to go before we have all the information. So just take a deep breath,” he said. “Nothing's going to happen. We're going to all make sure that we know what we need to know, and then we'll make our recommendation or decisions or whatever.”
In fact, there remains little publicly available information about who is proposing eight warehouse-style buildings on a 267-acre campus less than 3 miles north of La Grange. The complex would house computer servers and other equipment used to quickly process troves of digital information.
About 200 acres would be retained as green space.
Artist rendering of a data center campus proposed for Oldham County called Project Lincoln: OC Data Center (courtesy RunSwitch PR)
Western Hospitality Partners – Kentucky LLC, a New Jersey-based company that registered in Kentucky last August, filed a request for a conditional use permit for the property on March 19. The land is now zoned for agricultural and residential uses; if approved, the permit would allow a data center there.
Western Hospitality is listed as the project’s “developer” in an economic impact study it commissioned, according to documents reviewed by WDRB News. State records show the company spent at least $14,000 lobbying the Kentucky General Assembly on “tax policy” during the recently completed legislative session that passed a bill into law that expands tax breaks for data centers.
Those records list Harry Bram as a representative of Western Hospitality. Bram, an accountant, also is connected in other public records to the New Jersey residence where the company is headquartered.
Reached by telephone at his midtown Manhattan office Tuesday, Bram told a reporter he would have the “person best able to answer you call you right back.” No one has called or emailed more than 24 hours later.
RunSwitch Public Relations, the Louisville-based firm handling communications for the project, has not immediately responded to WDRB’s questions asking for more information about Western Hospitality Partners and their track record on data center projects, including how many they have developed and are pursuing.
Meanwhile, emails obtained in a public records request and reviewed by WDRB indicate that the Oldham Chamber & Economic Development agency was involved in the data center project before its public announcement.
But the chamber’s president, David Bizianes, told Voegele in an email March 30 that the organization “did not present the Ky53 site to the client and were not aware that it was even a consideration for the project.”
Bizianes did not immediately respond to phone and text messages on Wednesday.
Western Hospitality retained Kentucky-based Commonwealth Economics Partners for the economic impact study. An overview of that study reviewed by WDRB shows the project is expected to create 176 jobs with an annual average salary of $83,000.
The study predicts that the project would deliver $51 million in local tax revenue to Oldham County annually once fully operational, although that figure does not factor in any economic incentives.
The study concludes that water and energy demands "are not expected to pose issues, as both the local water utility and Kentucky Utilities have confirmed their capacity to meet the increased demand."
Oldham County’s Technical Review Committee is scheduled to discuss the project on April 16.
The Board of Adjustments and Appeals would have to agree to the conditional use permit, a designation that allows specific uses not allowed in a zoning district. The request is not on the board’s April 17 agenda.
Oldham County’s zoning code does not explicitly allow data centers as a conditional use in an agricultural zone, but that’s a result of a code that doesn’t reflect the relatively new data center industry, said Ryan Fischer, the county's director of planning and development.
Fischer said he thought the best fit for the Project Lincoln proposal was a category called “Private Utility Building and Facilities.” There is at least one such approval in recent years – from 2023 – for office space for a company that builds pipelines for public utilities, records show.
Opposition to the data center project has cropped up online, and Voegele acknowledged in an interview Wednesday that he has received a number of emails about the proposal.
“I don't know where they're coming from. They may all be Oldham County,” he said, adding that “it’s easy to forward an email or put your name on something without investigating it too deeply.”
Voegele described Oldham County as going through a “transition phase.”
“We're not the rural county we once were. We're a combination of urban and rural, and as businesses come out to try to locate here, or new things happen, there's a certain number of people that find that upsetting,” he said.
Among those who has emailed Voegele is Alice Johnson, who said she lives about a half-mile from the data center site. She told WDRB on Wednesday that an industrial area is more appropriate – not a place with homes and farms.
“Most people moved out to Oldham County because of those reasons. And we moved here so our families could breathe healthy air and live in a healthy area,” she said. “And now this is going to totally destroy everything for everyone that lives in this area.”
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