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Data centers in Portage County, Ohio: 1 project mapped
Portage County's cities shut the door on data centers in a single month in spring 2026, triggered by a proposal in Ravenna. Local landowner Ray Harner appeared to plan a data center on his property on State Route 14, across from UH Portage Medical Center, the Portager reported; he declined to comment. City administrators called it no big deal, but at an April 10 meeting residents packed the room. "I can confidently say that there was not one person who was in support of seeing something like this built in the city of Ravenna," said Councilwoman Carmen Laudato. "These things are not economic development," she said. "They are locusts and leeches on our resources. They inflate people's utility costs." On April 20 Ravenna City Council unanimously adopted a 12-month moratorium that also covers server farms and cryptocurrency mining, "to allow for study and development of appropriate legislation."
The county's one project on record is a much bigger one: Bitdeer, a Singapore-based bitcoin miner, and Streetsboro developer Geis Cos. want to build a 750-megawatt, 15-building computing campus on 257 acres at the Turnpike Commerce Center in Shalersville Township, next to the Ohio Turnpike, News 5 Cleveland reported. More than 200 people packed Shalersville's town hall for a meeting that ran three and a half hours, questioning the companies on energy use, water and noise. Shalersville trustees have since extended the township's existing moratorium while they study the plan.
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Kent had acted five days earlier. Its council adopted Ordinance 2026-31 on April 15 as an emergency measure, halting permits and applications for data centers for up to a year while the city studies whether it has "the necessary processes, resources and infrastructure," citing data centers' demands on energy, water and infrastructure capacity. On April 27 Streetsboro's council unanimously adopted a one-year moratorium on data centers, crypto mining and "substantially similar uses," making it the fourth Portage community to pause them. "I have no desire to allow them," Streetsboro Mayor Glenn Broska wrote, saying the pause would let the city "draft a defensible and ironclad text amendment that will preclude them from being built in the city." Law Director Joseph Grandinetti noted three or four data center bills pending in Columbus.
Ohio has nearly 200 data centers, most around Columbus, and members of the Facebook group Portage Residents for Responsible Development are circulating petitions for a statewide ballot measure to ban them.
What comes next: the Portage moratoriums run about a year, into spring 2027, while each city writes zoning rules; Streetsboro's mayor has said he wants a permanent ban. Any revival of the Route 14 proposal in Ravenna would face whatever rules the city adopts.
Data center projects on record in Portage County
Grouped by the town each site sits in. The report above may name projects that have no record here yet.
Portage County1
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitdeer Technologies Data CenterPortage County | Bitdeer | Proposed | 750 MW |
Where this comes from
The reporting above was written from these. Open one and check it yourself.
Moratoriums and bans in effect
Pauses on new data centers covering this area.
| Place | Type | Started | Ends | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| StreetsboroTown or city | Moratorium | Apr 27, 2026 | Apr 27, 2027 | Record off site ↗ |
| RavennaTown or city | Moratorium | Apr 20, 2026 | Apr 20, 2027 | Record off site ↗ |
| KentTown or city | Moratorium | Apr 15, 2026 | Apr 15, 2027 | Record off site ↗ |
| Shalersville TownshipTown or city | Moratorium | Not reported | Nov 2026 | Record off site ↗ |
Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.