Fortune 100 company seeking annexation to build 900-acre data campus in Fort Wayne
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Officials in Fort Wayne are taking steps to clear the way for a Fortune 100 company’s proposal to develop a new data center campus on land that straddles city limits.
In a news release Tuesday, Mayor Tom Henry announced a proposal to annex hundreds of acres of rural land southeast of the city at the company’s request.
City leaders said in the release that they can’t name the company “due to the competitive nature of their industry.”
The city’s Department of Planning Services received a primary development plan, rezoning petition and right of way vacation application related to the project earlier this month. The requests specifically seek changes needed to develop on about 900 acres east of Adams Center Road and to the north and south of Paulding Road.
Fort Wayne leaders say about 170 acres of the proposed data center development area already fall within city limits, but the company is seeking to have the remaining project real estate voluntarily annexed into the city. The press release states the petition for voluntary annexation includes signatures from 100% of landowners in the area, but it doesn’t say who the landowner is.
A spokesperson for the city said Fort Wayne’s Community Development Division received the petition with signatures from all property owners in the area. That includes 13 property owners covering nearly 40 parcels of land.
The area is mostly rural with just a few residential homes, according to the city. The annexation area follows the city boundary along Paulding Road on the north, the Chicago Fort Wayne Eastern Railroad corridor on the east, portion of Tillman Road on the south and portions of Adams Center Road on the west.
City leaders say they expect an annexation ordinance and fiscal plan resolution to come before Fort Wayne City Council later this month.