Crews are already on the ground in Trenton, Butler County, kicking off early site work for a proposed Prologis hyperscale data center on a 141-acre parcel in the city’s industrial park. Conceptual drawings for the project, dubbed "Project Mila," show a massive campus of single-story data halls, heavy-duty utility infrastructure and stormwater features that would significantly reshape the area’s industrial footprint.
What Prologis Is Proposing
Prologis says the effort is still in its early days, but company and city filings include site diagrams with multiple data halls, generator yards and retention ponds arranged in a centralized campus. The layout and accompanying materials, which city staff label as "preliminary/conceptual," depict nearly 900,000 square feet of building area and related support structures, according to the Cincinnati Business Courier.
Scale, Utilities And Jobs
The city sold the land to Prologis last fall for about $7.7 million, and company representatives told residents the site was picked for its access to existing power infrastructure. Local reporting indicates the build would require substantial water and power resources, with an estimated 15.8 million gallons of water a year and designs sized to handle hundreds of megawatts, along with roughly 100 to 150 permanent jobs once the campus is fully built out. Concerns over how that water and wastewater would be handled are colliding with a wider state debate after an Ohio EPA draft permit on data center discharge drew public scrutiny, as outlined by GovTech.
Neighbors Push Back
Residents and neighborhood organizers say they were caught off guard by the arrival of heavy equipment on the site before environmental and traffic studies are finished, and some are calling for a pause on work until those studies are completed. Video and reporting from a recent public forum show a packed room and pointed questions about noise, light pollution, water rates and emergency response times. City officials and Prologis representatives took questions at a March 2 town hall and emphasized that the company would pay for necessary grid upgrades and route cooling water to the municipal sewer system, according to WLWT.
Permits, Taxes And The Local Ledger
Trenton officials have floated an incentive package built around a Community Reinvestment Area tax abatement and upfront payments in lieu of taxes. City estimates suggest the arrangement could bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for the city and the Edgewood City School District during the abatement period, and several million dollars annually once the property is fully taxed. Under one projection, the site would carry a value of about $238.5 million at full taxation, generating an estimated $1.87 million a year for the city and around $3 million a year for the school district after the abatement expires. Those figures and the proposed PILOT distributions were shared at the public forum and reported by the Journal-News.
Next Steps For The Project
Prologis plans to seek formal site-plan approval from the Trenton Planning Commission, which is scheduled to review the project on March 9. Company representatives said construction on the first building could start later this year if approvals stay on track. Local reporting describes a buildout timeline that could stretch into 2029 for the full campus and urges residents to watch upcoming commission meetings and permit filings for more details, per the Dayton Daily News.
The project leaves Trenton weighing a high-stakes tradeoff: near-term revenue and infrastructure investment set against long-term questions about water, power and neighborhood character. With site work already visible from the street, the next round of planning hearings will be where community concerns, technical studies and city policy all collide.
