ASHVILLE, Ohio — Village leaders met with residents Wednesday night during a town hall meeting aimed at answering questions and outlining what a third reading of a proposed annexation would mean for the community, while also addressing major infrastructure challenges facing the village.
In attendance were Ashville Village Council members, Mayor, and several staff members, including Village Administrator Bert Cline. While much of the public discussion centered on the proposed EdgeConneX annexation, officials made clear the meeting was also about a far larger and more urgent issue: Ashville’s antiquated water infrastructure.
Village officials described Ashville’s water treatment plant as the second-oldest in the state, a situation that has drawn increasing pressure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. According to staff, the EPA has set a firm expectation that the village must correct deficiencies in the system — or the agency will step in and make the changes itself, with the cost passed directly on to residents either way.
Ashville estimates the cost of a new water treatment plant and related infrastructure at more than $35 million. For the village’s roughly 1,400 residents, officials said that could translate to an increase of about $100 per month on water bills, which currently average around $50 per month. This is on top of a water rate increase that the village will suffer starting next billing cycle. The Village did report that citizens are at some of the lowest water rates in the state currently.
“Basically all of the system in the old part of town has to be completely ripped up and replaced,” village officials said during the presentation. “When we do that, we destroy the roads, so they will also need to be fixed. This isn’t our doing — this is what has been handed to us. We as a community need to move forward and deal with these upgrades.”
EdgeConneX representatives were present at the meeting and confirmed plans to begin work soon on approximately 200 acres within the village that are already properly zoned. Company officials noted that paperwork for the project was submitted prior to a data center moratorium enacted by the council.
Residents from Harrison Township also attended the meeting, urging council and the mayor to move forward with a new Cooperative Economic Development Agreement (CEDA) that had been verbally agreed upon but not formally signed by the village. The Annexation of this data center would go against that agreement and may be why it wasnt signed.
Administrator Cline noted that annexation and zoning agreements tied to the EdgeConneX project could help offset major infrastructure costs, rather than placing the financial burden solely on residents, but only if the Village agreed to the sprawling 600-plus-acre data center.
During the public comment portion, EdgeConneX addressed concerns about water usage, noise, and environmental impact. Company officials said the proposed data center would use a closed-loop cooling system designed to minimize water consumption and would not require frequent refilling. They also emphasized the facility would not produce visible steam plumes like those seen at some other data centers along the U.S. 23 corridor toward Columbus. Power for the facility would be generated using natural gas.
EdgeConneX confirmed the project would be a hyperscale data center, a large-scale facility designed for high-density computing and artificial intelligence workloads. Hyperscale data centers typically feature advanced cooling systems, specialized AI-ready infrastructure, and multi-megawatt power capacity — often ranging from 150 to more than 300 megawatts — and are commonly used by major technology companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Apple.
Village officials stressed that no final decisions were made during the meeting, but said the town hall was intended to provide transparency as Ashville faces what leaders described as difficult but necessary choices about growth, infrastructure, and long-term financial sustainability. Final vote on the Annexation will be on February 2 at 6:30 pm, but regardless of the vote, the data center can move forward with the 200-acre lot.
