Project dossier · Urbana (Champaign County), Ohio

Urbana Technology Hub In review

Thor Equities assembled approximately 230 acres near Ohio 55 and US 68 for a 460,000 sq ft, $1B+ data center campus called the Urbana Technology Hub. A site plan application was submitted February 13 but deemed incomplete by city staff. The BZA unanimously denied Thor's appeal. The city council then adopted new zoning codes removing data centers as a permitted use in the M-1 manufacturing district. Thor Equities filed a federal lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. A charter amendment petition and mayor recall effort are also underway.

Key facts

Operator: Thor Equities
Owner: Thor Equities
Filing LLC: Urbana Investment Group LLC
Size: 230 ac
Location: Urbana (Champaign County), Ohio
First proposed: 2026-02-18
Application filed: 2026-02-13
Stage today: In review

Source
read 2026-08-14

What to do next

Next step: Application filed. Ask the planning office for the hearing date and request formal notice.

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What has happened so far (30 events)

2025-04-22rezoning
Urbana City Council approved a zoning code modification permitting data centers in the M-1 Light Manufacturing District and annexed Thor Equities' property. · source
2025-08-22financing
Urbana Owner I LLC (linked to Thor Equities) purchased a 47.6-acre parcel near the proposed site for $2,143,665. · source
2025-11-01incentive
In November 2025, city council approved a Community Reinvestment Area (CRA2) tax abatement agreement for the data center site after three readings. · source
2025-11-18financing
Highland55 Investments LLC purchased 85.6 acres southwest of Urbana for $3,210,712.50, the second major land assembly for the campus. · source
2026-01-23announcement
City Director of Administration Spencer Mitchell publicly confirmed for the first time that a property owner had approached the city about developing a data center. · source
2026-02-04hearing
Council members discussed data center concerns at a regular meeting and directed Law Director Feinstein to prepare moratorium legislation for the February 17 meeting. · source
2026-02-13filing
Site plan application submitted by Choice One Engineering on behalf of Thor Equities; deemed incomplete by city staff. · source
2026-02-17vote
City council voted 5-2 to remove a proposed 12-month data center moratorium from the agenda; approximately 50 residents attended the meeting. · source
2026-02-18announcement
Data center plans revealed at city meeting. · source
2026-02-23announcement
Thor Equities issued a public statement on the proposed data center, describing it as a $1 billion private investment and pledging water conservation, stable electric rates, and community investment. · source
2026-03-03vote
Urbana City Council passed a 12-month moratorium on new data centers by a 6-1 vote, with Audra Bean the sole dissenter; about 40 residents spoke afterward mostly in support. · source
2026-03-04coverage
Ideastream reported the moratorium left the $1 billion proposal in limbo and identified CyrusOne as a project partner alongside Thor Equities; an online petition opposing the project had gathered over 4,000 signatures within two weeks. · source
2026-03-20filing
Thor Equities formally appeals city's determination that application was incomplete. · source
2026-04-01vote
BZA unanimously denies Thor's appeal, upholding city determination that site plan application was incomplete. · source
2026-04-21announcement
Thor Equities launched a project information website, urbanaohiodatacenter.com, with a project overview, economic-benefit claims, and a contact form. · source
2026-05-01report
Thor Equities publicized economic-impact figures for the project: over $1 billion investment, more than $5.8 million in annual local tax revenue, over 1,000 construction jobs, and 30 to 80 permanent positions. · source
2026-05-21vote
City council adopts new zoning codes removing data centers as permitted use in M-1 district. · source
2026-06-05financing
Thor Equities purchased approximately 97 acres from Organ Farms LLC for about $3.4 million, adding a southern access point from U.S. Highway 68 to the proposed campus. · source
2026-06-09hearing
A public hearing was held on the proposed ordinance to reverse the 2025 zoning amendment and remove data centers as a permitted use in the M-1 district. · source
2026-06-16vote
City council unanimously passed Ordinance 4635-26, restoring the pre-2025 zoning code and completing the removal of data centers as a permitted M-1 use; residents applauded the vote. · source
2026-06-19filing
Thor Equities files federal lawsuit against City of Urbana in US District Court, Southern District of Ohio. · source
2026-07-01coverage
In July 2026, Thor Equities launched a direct mail, television, and digital advertising campaign aimed at Urbana residents, describing it as an educational effort to counter misinformation about the project. · source
2026-07-07protest
Two Urbana residents launched petitions: Nicole Nawman began a charter-amendment petition to bar hyperscale data centers, and James Cropper began a petition to recall Mayor Bill Bean over alleged lack of transparency. · source
2026-07-08announcement
City Law Director Mark Feinstein submitted his resignation to Mayor Bean, effective August 7, 2026, citing a new legal opportunity and family priorities; the city began recruiting a replacement. · source
2026-07-15filing
Nicole Nawman turned in the charter-amendment petition packet to the Champaign County Board of Elections, saying signatures well surpassed the required minimum. · source
2026-07-17vote
The Champaign County Board of Elections reported the mayoral recall petitions collected enough valid signatures for the recall question to appear on the November 3 general election ballot. · source
2026-07-20ruling
A Champaign County Common Pleas judge ordered the city to provide a complete transcript of the April 13 BZA hearing and set briefing deadlines through October 2026; the ruling did not decide the merits of the case. · source
2026-08-04vote
Urbana City Council approved emergency Ordinance No. 4640-26, sending the proposed data-center-ban charter amendment to the November 3, 2026 ballot, suspending rules to meet the August 5 filing deadline. · source
2026-08-05filing
Three candidates filed petitions by the August 5 deadline to replace Mayor Bean if he is recalled; Eugene Fields Jr. and Nicole Nawman met the 169-signature threshold while Taylor Armstrong fell four signatures short. · source
2026-08-07ruling
The Champaign County Board of Elections forwarded the charter-amendment petition to the Ohio Secretary of State after finding a typographical error referencing Article VII instead of Article VIII, leaving its ballot status uncertain. · 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 Urbana (Champaign 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 Urbana (Champaign 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 40.110, -83.750 — 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

Ohio briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

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Aligned Data Centers - Pataskala industrial park — Pataskala (Licking County), 58 mi Awaiting decision
Google Lancaster — Lancaster, 67 mi Operating

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Urbana Technology Hub”, aigridwatch.com/projects/urbana-oh-thor-equities, 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).