This publication has spent a considerable amount of time, effort and energy discussing the Piqua Data Center and have attempted to do so in a manner than has been mature, factual and honest. This project could have one of the largest economic development impacts in the county’s history and it deserves a robust discussion.
And as this publication has pointed out, a robust discussion is far from what many proponents and opponents of this project are actually wanting. From the beginning, this project has been shrouded in secrecy and the benefits have been touted as forgone conclusions. On the flip side, opponents have stated that the data center has no redeeming value for the community. Regardless, the political propoganda on this issue has been northing short of disgusting and demeaning.
This publication has searched to provide readers with a more objective and sober view of this development by providing a clear discussion of both the benefits and tradeoffs. All in a manner that has been more accessible than scholarly. This work is designed to provoke conversations around the kitchen table and the counter at the local diner - not a debate in a grad school classroom.
But one aspect of the discussion that has been missing is a real study of these data centers looking through a local lens. And while that discussion has been missing, we now have something. Earlier this month, Scioto Analysis, a public policy consultant provided a cost-benefit analysis for data centers in Ohio. You can read the report here:
This comes on the back of other national research from the Georgia Instutite of Technology, written by Daniel Yue and Yiyang Zeng, and the Brookings Institute research led by Dany Bahar and Greg Wright.
Today, we are going to take some of this work and try to create some sense of a cost-beneift analysis to the proposed data center in Piqua for the community and the larger Miami County community.
First, the team at Scioto Analysis made it clear that Ohio’s first big group of data centers did a lot of good for the Buckeye State. The Scioto Analysis report studied them from 2013 to 2026. It found about 96,000 jobs and a net benefit of about $62 billion. Each dollar of cost brought back about five dollars of benefit.
However, as time moves forward, that benefit looks very different. For projects planned from 2027 to 2034, Scioto finds a net benefit of only about $2.4 billion, with benefits barely beating costs. The report says counties see most of their job gains from their first data centers, so added data centers add few new benefits while adding large costs. It’s an open question on whether Piqua’s project belongs to the first wave (being the first data center in the county) or the second wave, knowing that jobs don’t necessarily care about county boundaries. What we do know is that the big job gains came earlier, while the power use and pollution keep growing.
The clearest gain for Piqua is city revenue. Under the reported deal, the city gets payments in place of property taxes, starting at $735,000 per building and reaching about $1.47 million a year for two buildings, along with receiving $200,000 right off the bat. Meta also promises $8 million for emergency services and about $80 million in roads, water, and sewer work. The state sales tax break for data centers is gone, so construction tax dollars can stay in Ohio. Meta says it will use closed-loop cooling that needs almost no water.
Jobs are a smaller gain. Meta promises at least 100 permanent jobs. Georgia Tech research found employment gains are strongest in big metro areas and weaker in rural ones, where sites often hire fewer than 100 people, which is exactly where Piqua is expected to be. Brookings research found typical gains of 100 to 200 jobs and no rise in wages. Construction would need about 1,000 workers at the peak, but those jobs end when the building does.
The studies say less about home values than residents might hope, because they look at whole counties, not at the houses next to a site. The Brookings work found home prices rose about 2% to 5% in counties that got a data center. Scioto cites another study finding that county home prices rise as data center activity grows. Scioto also points out that this cuts two ways. Current owners gain equity, but buyers and renters face higher costs, especially if land used for data centers is no longer available for housing. A 2% to 5% rise on a $200,000 home is $4,000 to $10,000. That is only an example, not a Miami County figure. Homeowners could gain on paper, while young families and renters could find housing harder to afford.
The studies do not measure what happens to homes right next to a site. Scioto notes that data center noise can be heard or felt up to a mile away, and residents elsewhere have reported sleep and health problems. Scioto decided noise did not change its overall results. For neighbors, though, it could matter more. Nothing that was reviewed shows whether nearby homes lose value, so that is not a claim that can be made.
The biggest worry on the cost side is the power bill. Georgia Tech found local electricity prices rise about 5% after a data center opens. Scioto expects Ohio ratepayers to pay about $16 billion more between 2027 and 2034 if rules stay the same. Piqua’s own power costs already rose about $1 million in 2026 from higher transmission charges, before any data center was built. AES Ohio says they will cut a check for $1 million a year for the next thiry years, but with inflation, the buying power of that $1 million turns into about half that much thirty years from how. Meta says it will pay full costs for the energy it uses, but that does not say who pays for wider grid upgrades.
Pollution is another cost. Using Scioto’s data, a rough estimate could be made that a project this size could cause hundreds of millions of dollars a year in health costs, spread across the region. Treat that as a warning sign, not a forecast.
The key problem is that Piqua’s payments are mostly fixed, but the costs are not. When the announcement that $80 million in water, stormwater and other infrasturcutre improvements were annonuced, some residents might get nervous. Roads need repaving, pipes burst. Today’s $80 million investment might look like an asset today, but it could easily turn into a $120 million liability in the future.
If the project grows, power use and grid costs grow with it, while the payments to the city and the schools stay about the same. That matters because the Scioto report’s benefits depend heavily on one assumption: how much local pay rises when a data center arrives. The report uses 5%, from Georgia Tech research. When Scioto tested a low estimate of 1%, the benefits shrank but the costs did not. The result was a net loss under all three policies Scioto tested in that scenario, including current rules, which lost about $45 billion statewide for 2027 to 2034.
This does not mean 1% will happen, and a 7% gain would make the picture much brighter. But Georgia Tech also found that rural counties see smaller gains than metro counties, which puts a place like Piqua closer to the cautious end. If the jobs and pay fall short, the community could carry costs it did not plan for. Scioto studied Ohio as a whole, not Piqua, so these results show how fragile the statewide math is, not what will happen in Miami County.
The franchise that lets AES Ohio serve the site will be going to a referendum vote in February. That gives residents a real chance to ask hard questions. Will payments grow if the project grows? Will Piqua’s power customers be protected in writing? Are the 100 jobs a promise with penalties? What will nearby home values and noise levels look like?
Piqua likely gets a decent short-term deal for its city budget, but those gains look less attractive the longer the time horizon moves out. Whether the data center is a net benefit to the community is still an open question.
This is what it looks like when residents stay informed. If you find value in this work, share it with a neighbor, a colleague, or anyone who cares about this community. Paid subscriptions keep it going — $5 a month.
Civic Capacity runs on one thing: readers who believe local journalism matters. If you want to support this work without a subscription, you can now make a one-time contribution through Buy Me a Coffee — or in my case, Buy Me an Iced Tea. Click the button below. Every contribution goes directly into the work you read here every day.