Project Redline data center, Hancock County, Indiana

Project Redline is the code name the Indiana Economic Development Corporation used on 25 June 2025 for a hyperscale data center in Hancock County, Indiana, whose owner it would not name. The unidentified end user pledged 50 jobs and $1 billion of investment by 2029, and the agency's business development committee approved a tax break it valued at $42 million over an initial 35 years.

The break, created by the legislature in 2019, exempts a data center from sales tax on its servers and other equipment and from utility tax on the electricity that runs them, and can be renewed for three further five year periods with more investment. Redline was one of four approved that day, with Project Louie in Morgan County, Project Flo in Marion County and Project Maize in LaPorte County, $168 million in all. Agency spokeswoman Erin Sweitzer declined to name the companies and said it could not confirm whether the projects were ones already reported.

The Hancock County project in the news in the months before had been proposed by Surge Development of Shelbyville, which withdrew its rezoning request in May 2025 after significant public opposition. That was a 775 acre MegaSite in Buck Creek Township, around 3400 West 500 North just east of the Indianapolis Regional Airport, and the only data center images in its filings were of Google facilities. Opposition centred on Tuttle Orchards next door, and Surge said it would focus "on working directly with the specific users who have expressed interest in the site." Surge's principal, Chris King, sits on the agency's board and recused himself before the data centers came up, so he did not vote on Redline. Data Center Dynamics wrote that Project Redline "likely refers" to the Surge site.

Hancock County's commissioners answered by building a gate: on 16 June 2026 they passed an ordinance, unanimously and effective at once, limiting data centers to land zoned industrial general, creating a data center overlay district and giving themselves the final vote on any project. A developer must now write to the commissioners first, and they decide whether the project promotes public health, safety and welfare, fits the comprehensive plan and the character of the industrial general district, is the most desirable use of the land, conserves property values in the district and counts as responsible development. Only then does it reach a technical review, a plan commission public hearing and a final commissioners' vote. County planning director Kayla Brooks said the old definition had lumped data centers in with "communication service exchange" and made them a permitted use in several districts: "Before, they could just go to the Board of Zoning Appeals and get it approved without coming to (the commissioners)."

Commissioner Gary McDaniel said afterwards that an overlay was chosen over a moratorium because a pause would tie the county's hands, and that two data center companies were looking at Hancock County without having approached the commissioners. A citizens committee on data center siting is to report to the plan commission by the end of 2026 with the development standards the ordinance does not yet carry.