Lexington Data center, Lexington, Kentucky

The switch and data center building at 151 Martin Luther King Boulevard in downtown Lexington, Kentucky, is an operating telecom hub that JLL put up for sale in 2024 as part of an eight-building portfolio leased to a home internet provider, which DCD identified as likely Windstream. JLL said the Lexington building serves "as the switch and data center hub for the tenant's east coast operations", and that it and a Colorado Springs site "serve as key data center locations for the tenant's wholesale services".

The eight sites total 379,000 square feet on 26 acres in seven states, with seven leased through 2034 and one through 2031, and they generate $5.7 million a year in rent, DCD reported in August 2024. The tenant has occupied all eight buildings since at least 2014, and JLL described them as interconnected transmission facilities that route telecommunication traffic across the tenant's network. Whether the portfolio sold, and to whom, has not been reported.

Lexington is in the middle of writing its first data center rules. In June 2026 the Urban County Council voted unanimously to pause data center development through at least October 31, 2026, and directed the Planning Commission to draft zoning changes. The Planning Commission's July recommendations would cap a minor data center at 40,000 square feet and add an energy capacity cap, raise set-backs from 1,000 feet to 1,500 feet, and hold noise at the property line of an adjoining residential zone or use to 30 decibels, 24 hours a day. At a Sept. 8 committee meeting, 1st District Councilmember Tyler Morton pointed out that many of the B-4 and I-1 zones where minor data centers would be allowed as a conditional use are concentrated in his district, and questioned whether equity was considered.

The council will hear from residents at a public hearing on October 6, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. in the Government Center at 200 East Main Street before making a final decision. The draft rules deal with new data centers; the Martin Luther King Boulevard building is an established telecom facility, and no change to it has been reported.