Project dossier · Lordstown (Trumbull County), Ohio

OpenAI Stargate Lordstown Under construction

Data center by Softbank in Lordstown (Trumbull County), Ohio. Under construction.

Key facts

Operator
Softbank
Owner
Softbank
Tenant
OpenAI
Location
Lordstown (Trumbull County), Ohio
Stage today
Under construction

Source
read 2026-08-14

What to do next

Next step: Under construction — pull the approved conditions and permits and hold the builder to them; an expansion or a new building reopens the record.

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What has happened so far (16 events)

  • 2025-01-21announcement
    The Stargate Project was announced at the White House as a $500 billion venture by SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX to build AI data center infrastructure in the United States, with SoftBank as financial lead and OpenAI as operational lead. · source
  • 2025-08-04financing
    Foxconn announced the sale of its 6.2 million-square-foot former GM assembly plant in Lordstown to SoftBank for $375 million; the buyer was later identified as SoftBank's affiliate Crescent Dune LLC, a Delaware entity formed in July 2025. · source
  • 2025-08-18announcement
    Foxconn Chairman Young Liu announced a joint venture with SoftBank to manufacture AI data center equipment at the Lordstown plant, with Foxconn and SoftBank each holding 50% of the manufacturing operation while SoftBank owns the facility and equipment outright. · source
  • 2025-09-24announcement
    OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank announced five new Stargate data center sites including Lordstown, Ohio; SoftBank said it had already broken ground on an advanced data center at the site, with the facility on track to be operational in 2026. · source
  • 2025-09-24filing
    Crescent Dune LLC (SoftBank affiliate) recorded the property transfer of the former GM Lordstown plant and nearly 600 acres from Foxconn EV Property Development LLC with the Trumbull County Auditor, listing a sale price of $88 million for the building and land. · source
  • 2025-10-20filing
    Bristolville 25 Developer LLC, a separate New York-based developer, submitted a site plan proposal to Lordstown zoning for a $3.6 billion, 1.65 million-square-foot data center on 133 acres adjacent to the Stargate campus. · source
  • 2025-10-28construction
    Preparation work began on the Lordstown Stargate data center, with crews clearing space in front of the former GM plant near the northwest corner along Hallock Young Road and dismantling a solar array near the former paint facility. · source
  • 2025-11-03vote
    Lordstown Village Council voted 6-0 to ban all future data centers in the village, with approximately 100 residents attending and the majority speaking in opposition to data center development; the ban was set to take effect December 3. · source
  • 2025-11-14lawsuit
    Bristolville 25 Developer LLC and BHGH Properties LLC filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the Ohio Supreme Court to compel Lordstown to accept, review, and act upon the developer's site plan submission under Ohio law. · source
  • 2025-11-17environmental
    Crescent Dune LLC filed wetland and stream delineation documents with the Ohio EPA for a 160-acre expansion behind the Lordstown plant for modular data center and server manufacturing, assembly for IT server racks, and related components. · source
  • 2025-12-01vote
    Lordstown Village Council repealed its data center ban on the advice of the village solicitor, who stated Ohio courts favor moratoriums over outright bans; a public hearing on a replacement 180-day moratorium was scheduled for January 5, 2026. · source
  • 2025-12-24ruling
    The Ohio Supreme Court issued an entry denying Lordstown's motion to dismiss the Bristolville 25 mandamus case against the village and its zoning inspector, while granting dismissal of the village solicitor as a party; the court also granted an alternative writ. · source
  • 2026-01-05moratorium
    Lordstown Village Council unanimously approved a 180-day moratorium on new data center permits after a public hearing attended by more than 50 residents, most of whom spoke against data centers; the moratorium was set to expire July 4, 2026. · source
  • 2026-03-25hearing
    Lordstown officials heard from land-use planner Brian Frantz, who advised the village to define data centers in zoning codes, designate appropriate locations, and use conditional-use permits to control placement, design, noise, and lighting. · source
  • 2026-05-05moratorium
    Lordstown council approved a consulting agreement with planner Brian Frantz (not to exceed $7,625) for zoning and data center matters and advertised a public hearing to extend the data center moratorium for an additional 180 days. · source
  • 2026-06-16moratorium
    Lordstown Village Council approved by emergency reading a 180-day extension of the data center moratorium, effective July 5, 2026 through January 2, 2027, to allow continued development of zoning standards for setbacks, noise, water usage, and other data center impacts. · 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.

County & town filings

The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.

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.

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 41.170, -80.870 — 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.

Around here

Other tracked projects in Ohio

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “OpenAI Stargate Lordstown”, aigridwatch.com/projects/openai-stargate-lordstown, 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).

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