Officials ‘ecstatic’ about $11B data center in New Carlisle
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Officials in St. Joseph County say they are excited about the $11 billion data center campus from Amazon Web Services planned for New Carlisle.
The cloud computing company on Thursday announced plans for the campus, which is expected to bring at least 1,000 jobs to the Indiana Enterprise Center.
“When we use the term transformational,” it really is transformational for this county,” County Commissioner Carl Baxmeyer told our partners at Fox Michiana.
Officials said the project has been in the works for months and is expected to bring a major economic benefit for the county.
“We haven’t seen this kind of investment, and so when we look at the total aggregate of what this will bring in, its millions of dollars in positive investments on the tax side on a yearly basis,” said Bill Schalliol, Director of Economic Development for St. Joseph County.
The investment could have a major impact on area businesses with the influx of new residents and employees. While some business owners are excited, others remain cautiously optimistic.
“It makes you proud that they want to come to our area, but it’s a little nervous about do we have enough space, do we have enough housing, do we have enough restaurants, do I have enough employees?” Craig Meyers, owner of Black Cat Lanes in New Carlisle, told Fox Michiana. “So, it makes you nervous but excited.”
Baxmeyer said the county is working with local residents to address their concerns.
“The community could look at this as a challenge or it can look at it as an opportunity, and I think that’s where a lot of the community is, and now they see this as an opportunity,” said Baxmeyer.
Schalliol told Fox Michiana that AWS has already broken ground on the north side of the campus, which will be operational later this year. The acquisition of the south portion of the land is expected to close in a couple of weeks, after which construction on that phase will begin.
“Their build out schedule will be pretty rapid as they have a large customer base,” said Schalliol. “They’re putting all of their money and time and effort into moving this project forward so we will see a lot of investment very quickly.”