Nordson campus data center (Cervenka) Denied
Use variance to convert three newer buildings on the longtime Nordson Corporation campus into a data center complex - denied by the Board of Zoning Appeals on July 30, 2026, less than 24 hours after a hearing where 100+ residents packed City Hall and spilled onto the lawn. The developer's remaining path is an appeal in Lorain County Common Pleas Court.
Key facts
- Filing LLC
- Cervenka Development Partners LLC
- Location
- Amherst (Lorain County), Ohio
- Decided
- 2026-07-30
- Stage today
- Denied
Source
read 2026-08-07
What to do next
Next step: Denied — watch for a re-filing or a scaled-down resubmission; ask the clerk to add you to the notification list.
What has happened so far (4 events)
- 2026-04-01operational
Nordson campus buildings at 100-300 Nordson Drive listed for sale (the property had been on the market since April, per the developer's hearing testimony), after Nordson relocated manufacturing to South Carolina. · source - 2026-07-14filing
Cervenka Development Partners LLC filed a use variance application with the Amherst Board of Zoning Appeals for 100, 200, and 300 Nordson Drive, proposing to convert approximately 240,000 sq ft of former Nordson industrial space into a 45 MW data center. · source - 2026-07-29hearing
Over 100 Amherst residents packed City Hall for the BZA hearing on the data center variance; fire-code capacity limits restricted entry to 60 people while others listened from the lawn on their phones; attorney Gerald Phillips argued the application was defective because Cervenka lacks ownership or documented authorization from Nordson. · source - 2026-07-30vote
Amherst Board of Zoning Appeals denied the use variance, releasing its decision less than 24 hours after a packed hearing (100+ residents, capacity limits pushed the crowd outside). · source
Find the paper trail
Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)
State environmental permits
Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.
- Ohio EPA — Division of Air Pollution ControlThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
- Ohio EPA eBusiness Center (Air Services)Searchable public filings — search the operator, the shell LLC on the deed, and the address.
County & town filings
The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.
- Search Amherst (Lorain County) planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
- Search Amherst (Lorain County) property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.
Utility & grid records
The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.
- PJM Interconnection (Mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
- Public Utilities Commission of Ohio — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
- FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
- Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.
Federal databases
Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.
- EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 41.400, -82.220 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
- EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
- EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.
These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.
Recent news
- Amherst Council advances data center moratorium
- Amherst County Board votes to require special use permits for future data centers
- Capacity limits push Amherst residents outside as zoning board hears data center proposal
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 3 headlines archived.
Around here
- Ohio briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Ohio
- OpenAI Stargate Lordstown — Lordstown (Trumbull County), 72 mi Under construction
- Google New Albany — New Albany, 96 mi
- Meta Prometheus — New Albany, 96 mi
- Aligned Data Centers - Pataskala industrial park — Pataskala (Licking County), 100 mi Awaiting decision
- Google Columbus — Columbus, 111 mi
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Nordson campus data center (Cervenka)”, aigridwatch.com/projects/nordson-campus-amherst-oh, retrieved 2026-10-11.
As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing
A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.
Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).