The Shelbyville Common Council voted 5-1-1 Monday night to send a controversial annexation and rezone petition to the Plan Commission for further review.
More than 425 acres just east of Interstate 74 along State Road 44 is part of a proposed project to create a data center campus in Shelbyville.
The first reading of the ordinance and a public hearing occurred at the first council meeting of 2026 at City Hall. Hundreds of residents packed the council chambers to express displeasure with the idea of a potential local data center.
For nearly two hours 47 people stepped before the council to speak their concerns for a project still in the exploratory phase.
Following the public comment section of the meeting, the council voted to move the petition to the Plan Commission for more consideration.
The Plan Commission is holding a special meeting Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Breck Auditorium at Shelbyville High School to discuss the petition.
“In my 22 years in city government, that is the biggest crowd I’ve had appear (for a meeting),” said Shelbyville Mayor Scott Furgeson (photo) after the meeting speaking exclusively with GIANT fm. “I am sad we didn’t anticipate and go to a different location. I don’t know if we would have gotten more people to speak. I think everybody that wanted to speak … the line ended up being done and we had people speaking for a second time. I think we gave everyone a chance to voice their opinion.”
Approval of a data center was not part of Monday’s agenda, only the annexation and rezoning request. Prologis, a global company with experience building data centers, has stepped forward with regard to the project and had representatives at Monday’s council meeting.
The Prologis presentation centered around other facilities the company has created and what the future for data centers is becoming.
“There is a swell in need for data centers in our country,” said Trae Westmoreland of Prologis.
The Shelby County land and its current infrastructure meet the general needs for a data center, according to Prologis. How the data center will affect electric and water supplies in the region is a chief concern.
“A question was brought up about how many questions are unanswered, well there are a lot of questions that aren’t answered right now,” said Furgeson. “That’s part of the planning process and what we are doing now. We have to get the zoning in place first before they (Prologis) go forward and spend a bunch of money.”
The goal is to build a 500-megawatt campus that could include as many as 13 buildings. Prologis has stated it anticipates the completed campus would employ 450 full-time employees with many earning six-figure salaries.
The annexation and subsequent rezoning of the parcels to General Industrial from Agriculture will keep the property a viable option for development in the future if the data center does not get approved.
“It gets (Prologis) the ability to make further plans and spend more money on this project after it is rezoned and annexed,” explained Furgeson. “Until that point in time, they haven’t done the due diligence on it because it is a waste of money.”
Wednesday’s Plan Commission meeting will again discuss the annexation and rezoning of the property. There will be a public comment session during the meeting.
The commission will then vote to send a “favorable” or “unfavorable” recommendation back to the common council for a final vote. That would likely occur at the next scheduled council meeting on Jan. 21.
Even if the council approves to annex and rezone the parcels, it does not guarantee a data center campus will be built. Prologis will then have to present its plan for a data center campus for scrutiny. That is when the detailed questions about the project will take center stage.
Furgeson did not have a vote on the petition Monday.
Five council members – Kassy Wilson, Betsy Means-Davis, Mike Johnson, Chuck Reed and Linda Sanders – voted “yes” to send the petition to the Plan Commission.
Thurman Adams was the lone “no” vote.
Councilman Denny Harrold abstained because the law firm he works for was representing the landowners petitioning for annexation.
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