Ohio Court Rejects Ballot Bid to Restrict AWS's $4B Wilmington Data Center
Ohio’s Supreme Court on Sept. 18 blocked a proposed ballot measure that could have imposed new operating restrictions and citizen-enforced lawsuits on Amazon Web Services’ $4-billion data center campus in Wilmington, Engineering News-Record reports. The court denied petitioners’ request to force the Clinton County Board of Elections to place the ordinance on the Nov. 3 ballot, ruling that its citizen-enforcement provision, which would have let residents sue and seek injunctions with penalties up to $10,000 per day, exceeded the city’s authority.
The ruling clears one legal obstacle, but it doesn’t unlock construction. A separate federal court order from July 14 still bars Wilmington’s Planning Commission from acting on AWS’s site plan until city council ratifies three ordinances covering generator noise, data centers as a permitted use, and rezoning of the 471-acre site. Amazon Data Services has intervened in that case but reserved its rights on the pending application.
What It Means for Subcontractors
- The nine-building, 1.92-million-sq-ft campus is projected to generate more than 200 construction jobs over a build-out exceeding five years, but site-plan approval remains frozen pending city council action on three ordinances, so mobilization dates are still unconfirmed.
- AWS is on the hook for at least $25 million in public infrastructure, including 3.5 miles of trunk sewer, 2.5 miles of water main, a 1-million-gallon water tower, and road upgrades to US 68 and State Route 730 to city and ODOT standards, work that will require civil, utility, and paving subcontractors once cleared.
- The unnamed general contractor will need FAA approval for construction cranes closer to the start of work, a signal that crane and rigging subs should watch for permitting activity as a leading indicator that vertical construction is imminent.
