AWS Data Center Campus in Sidney, Ohio Clears Final Infrastructure Approvals, Locking in $8M of Private Road Funding

Sidney City Council adopted the water, sewer, and development agreements for an Amazon Data Services campus on April 27 over sustained public opposition, securing 1 million gallons per day of water capacity and closing the last regulatory loop before vertical construction.

Amazon Web Services' planned data center campus at 2388 W. Millcreek Road in Sidney, Ohio cleared its final infrastructure approvals on April 27, 2026, when Sidney City Council adopted Resolutions 26-26 and 27-26. The two resolutions lock in a 10-year water and sewer service agreement with Amazon Web Services, Inc. (the operator) and a development agreement with Amazon Data Services, Inc. (the developer) — both Delaware-registered Amazon affiliates building out the Shelby County campus.

The vote closes a deal that has been moving quietly through Sidney's municipal calendar for nearly two and a half years. The city signed an NDA with the developer in December 2023, but Amazon's identity did not surface publicly until the Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) tax abatement was authorized in October 2025.

Key Details

• Project: Hyperscale data center campus at 2388 W. Millcreek Road, Sidney, Ohio (northwest corner of Vandemark and Millcreek Roads)
• Developer: Amazon Data Services, Inc. (Delaware corporation); operator: Amazon Web Services, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: City of Sidney, Shelby County, Ohio
• Water reservation: 1.0 million gallons per day maximum withdrawal at 694 gpm; 4.6 million gallons per year projected cooling water use (Confirmed — Resolution 26-26, Schedule 1)
• Sewer reservation: 390,493 gallons per day at a maximum 716 gpm (Confirmed)
• Private contribution to public infrastructure: up to $8.0 million from Amazon Data Services for Millcreek Road reconstruction (Confirmed — Resolution 27-26)
• Total Millcreek Road project funding: $10.23 million, including a $1,956,906 Ohio Roadwork Development Grant and a $275,000 ODOT Jobs & Commerce Grant (Confirmed)
• Tax structure: CRA tax abatement (Resolution 18-25, October 2025), Income Tax Sharing Agreement with Sidney City Schools and Upper Valley Career Center (Resolution 82-25), and a school-district CRA development agreement (Resolution 81-25)
• Term: 10-year initial water/sewer agreement, renewable in 12-month increments; triennial true-up review beginning three years after data center buildout

Why It Matters

For site selectors, Sidney is signaling availability that most competing markets cannot. The water plant has a 7.0 MGD design capacity against current average demand of 3.1 MGD — leaving 3.9 MGD of headroom. AWS's 1.0 MGD reservation fits inside it, and city staff confirmed no public infrastructure improvements are required to serve the campus. That combination — capacity available, no public capital outlay, political alignment in place — is increasingly rare in U.S. data center markets.

For developers and capital allocators, the $8 million private contribution to public road infrastructure is the structural signal worth tracking. Amazon's commitment effectively backstops the entire $7.93M engineer's estimate — roughly 78% of the $10.23M total available funding pool when stacked against the city's $1.96M ODOD and $275K ODOT grants. The Millcreek scope was deliberately enlarged to also serve Cargill's adjacent plant expansion and new Kuther Road access. Western Ohio's industrial corridor is consolidating, with hyperscalers co-funding road upgrades alongside food and ag manufacturers.

For regulatory and compliance teams, the April 27 vote closes the deal's regulatory perimeter — NDA in December 2023, tax abatements in October 2025, infrastructure agreements in April 2026. Vertical construction is the next phase, not approvals.

Public Sentiment: Vote Passed Over Sustained Opposition

The April 27 session ran nearly two hours of public comment, almost entirely opposed. Fifteen-plus Sidney and Shelby County residents addressed the council, and the dominant ask was the same: table the vote until a public records mediation hearing scheduled for that Wednesday. Council declined and adopted both resolutions the same evening. (Confirmed — April 27, 2026 transcript)

Five themes drove the opposition:

• Redacted public records. A resident's public records request for the development and water/sewer agreements was returned with redactions, triggering the Wednesday mediation hearing. Multiple speakers cited the redactions as evidence the deal had not been adequately vetted publicly. (Confirmed — speaker statements and clerk acknowledgment)
• Water-table and PFAS risk. Residents living near the city's two well fields (one inside Sidney, one in Washington Township) raised concerns about cumulative drawdown, "forever chemicals" entering the source water, and the city's ability to detect novel contaminants. The city's seven production wells became a focal point of questioning.
• NDA and tax-abatement skepticism. The 2023 NDA was repeatedly framed as evidence of a "quick buck" deal. Mark Cantrell (Brooklyn Avenue) put it bluntly: "Now you ought to give me a tax abatement when I moved here." Several speakers questioned whether a non-employment-generating data center justified the CRA structure approved in October 2025.
• Capacity ambiguity. A resident ran the math on the 14.3% reserve fee — if AWS reserves 1 MGD and won't be a top-five water user, implied reserved capacity for larger unnamed users approaches the city's headroom. Staff did not resolve the question on the record.
• Reference to other markets pulling back. Speakers cited Maine's data center moratorium, a Mansfield, Ohio mayoral letter declining a data center because the project was "not in alignment with the community," and Dayton's recent pause. A speaker representing a local opposition group stated its Facebook page has more than 2,700 members — over 10% of Sidney's voting population. (Speaker claim — Speculative)

The vote's signal matters. Council had political room to delay — a public records mediation was 48 hours away — and chose not to. For site selectors, that's a marker of jurisdictional commitment. For developers tracking adjacent markets, it's also a warning: the same opposition playbook (records requests, well-water mobilization, regional precedent citation) is now portable to any Ohio jurisdiction considering hyperscale capacity.

What to Watch

The Wednesday mediation outcome. The redacted-records mediation scheduled for the day after the vote could surface terms not yet public. (Proposed)

Cargill expansion. The Millcreek/Kuther Road intersection rebuild is explicitly designed to accommodate Cargill truck traffic from a new plant access. Expect a related announcement on Cargill's expansion scope and timing. (Proposed)

Demolition appropriation. The engineer's $7.93M Millcreek Road estimate excludes demolition of the former Auto Tech building, which sits in the road improvement footprint. A separate appropriation is likely on a future council agenda. (Proposed)

Triennial true-up. Three years after the campus is built out, the city will reassess water and sewer base rates and impact fees against actual data center burden — the next regulatory pressure point on operating cost.

Adjacent-jurisdiction contagion. Watch Mansfield, Dayton, and other Ohio markets where similar opposition coalitions are now organized and citing each other's playbooks on the record.

The Obedio Advantage

Hyperscaler campuses don't surface as single announcements. They unfold across non-disclosure agreements, CRA filings, school-board negotiations, and utility-capacity reservations spread over 24+ months. The Sidney AWS deal's NDA was signed in December 2023; the campus did not become publicly attributable to Amazon until tax abatements moved through council in late 2025. Tracking municipal calendars, ordinance dockets, and water-sewer capacity filings is how this kind of activity becomes visible 12 to 18 months before it reaches mainstream coverage — and where the difference between first-mover positioning and reactive sales effort gets decided.

Sources

• City of Sidney, City Council Agenda Packet, April 27, 2026 — Resolutions 26-26 and 27-26 and accompanying Council Action Summaries
• City of Sidney, City Council Meeting Transcript, April 27, 2026 — staff presentation by Brian Clark (Utilities Director) and approximately two hours of public comment
• Water and Wastewater Service Agreement between Amazon Web Services, Inc. and the City of Sidney, Schedule 1
• Resolution 18-25, Community Reinvestment Area Agreement with Amazon Data Services (October 27, 2025)
• Resolutions 81-25 and 82-25, school district CRA and Income Tax Sharing agreements

LinkedIn hook: Amazon's AWS data center campus in Sidney, Ohio cleared its final infrastructure approvals last week — $8M in private road funding, 1 million gallons/day of water capacity, a 10-year service agreement with the city. Council voted yes over nearly two hours of public opposition and a pending public records mediation. The NDA between Sidney and Amazon was signed in December 2023; the deal didn't become publicly attributable to AWS for nearly two years. This is what hyperscaler site selection actually looks like in flyover country — and it's increasingly contested.

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