Google has agreed to cover a $4 million local funding match tied to a major transportation project in Green Township connected to the planned Franklin Furnace data center development.
At Thursday’s Scioto County Commissioners meeting, commissioners unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding with Tilted Gate LLC, the company connected to the Google data center project. The agreement says Google will pay the local share required for the county to pursue millions in additional state and federal infrastructure funding.
Commissioner Scottie Powell said the project centers around the notorious bridge strike area near US-52 in Green Township and would dramatically change traffic flow and safety in the area.
“This is a project specifically for the bridge strike in Green Township that goes over US-52,” Powell said.
Powell explained that long before Google announced plans for a data center campus in Franklin Furnace, the county had already been working for nearly two years to improve the area because of ongoing safety concerns.
“The first round of funding we received was for planning dollars,” Powell said. “We looked at multiple options. You could raise the bridge to interstate standards, you could put an interchange there, and part of the funding was state money to the tune of around $7 million.”
But there was a catch.
To receive the larger grants, the county would have needed to provide a local match of roughly $4 million — money Powell admitted the county simply did not have.
“Google has committed to pay the $4 million local match that the county would have had to come up with,” Powell said. “Let’s be honest — we did not have that funding.”
Depending on which option is eventually selected, Powell estimated the overall project could cost between $35 million and $50 million.
If approved, the project would do more than just address the low bridge area.
Powell said current plans could include:
- Eliminating the dangerous railroad crossing near Haverhill
- Creating a new interchange near the bridge strike location
- Improving traffic flow around US-52
- Reducing accident risks in the area
“The school doesn’t even use that rail crossing because it’s dangerous,” Powell said. “There are a lot of accidents there where people are slowing down from 70 miles per hour.”
The funding being pursued includes federal rail elimination money designed specifically for projects that remove hazardous railroad crossings.
Powell stressed that if the project moves forward, there will still be opportunities for public input before final decisions are made.
The transportation announcement comes as debate over the Google data center project continues throughout Scioto County.
Many residents have raised concerns about noise, water usage, environmental impacts, and whether data centers truly benefit local communities long term.
Powell acknowledged that skepticism still exists, but said he believes Google has been unfairly grouped together with some of the industry’s worst examples.
“I wish the community could have been exposed earlier in the process to Google and their practices compared to other problematic data centers,” Powell said.
He said the entire data center industry has struggled with public communication in recent years.
“Hundreds of data centers were built with very little public discussion,” Powell said. “Now the issue has become a political football. Some of it’s warranted. Some of it’s politics.”
Commissioner Merit Smith said Google representatives themselves admitted during the recent public open house in Franklin Furnace that they should have engaged with the community sooner.
“The people from Google will admit they learned from the process and wished they had put out more information to answer the public’s questions,” Smith said.
Commissioner Will Mault agreed.
“Better late than never,” Mault said. “I wish they had done this prior.”
The proposed Google campus, known internally as “Project Dazzler,” is expected to be built in multiple phases and could eventually bring hundreds of permanent jobs along with years of construction work to the region.