Glossy mailers promising multi-million-dollar buyouts started showing up this week in rural mailboxes along Jug Street and Mink Street in Jersey Township, catching long-time homeowners off guard. The letters list an email address tied to a company called JPH Corp. and include renderings that look a lot like an industrial campus. Residents say stacks of the mailers were slipped into mailboxes with no postage and no warning, which has only fueled speculation about who is really behind the offers.
As reported by CW Columbus, local TV station ABC6 tracked down a wetlands permit filed last week with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency by a New Albany-based entity called Mink Street Land Company. According to CW Columbus, the filing describes a roughly 323-acre project near Mink Street, Jug Street and Beaver Road that would feature six buildings totaling more than 1.6 million square feet, with construction slated to open in December. CW Columbus reports that attempts to reach the company named on the mailers did not produce any answers.
Public planning records list Mink Street Land Company LLC on recent packets for New Albany-area parcels, and commercial property listings show the firm has bought and sold multiple lots in the Jug-Mink corridor. The New Albany planning packet names Mink Street Land Company among property owners in recent filings, and a commercial listing for a Mink Street parcel documents the company's activity in the area. Those records outline acquisitions and paperwork but do not, on their own, confirm final approvals or lock in an exact development timetable.
“It was just kind of a shock to get something in the mail as it came. There was no postage,” longtime resident David Putnam told CW Columbus. Putnam, who said he has lived at his home in Jersey Township for more than 30 years, added that neighbors received identical stacks and that talk of expanding industrial and data-center development has made residents uneasy. The surprise mailers have sped up local conversations about transparency and what a large campus could mean for traffic, water and working farmland.
How the wetland permit process works
Ohio EPA's isolated-wetland and Section 401 permitting rules require several layers of administrative and technical review before any work can start on the ground. According to the agency's application guidance, Ohio EPA has 15 business days to conduct an administrative completeness check, and then 90 calendar days for a technical review once an application is deemed complete. Permit applications must include wetland delineations and mitigation plans. Filing a permit opens a review window but does not amount to an approval, community members and local officials can often review application materials and raise questions while the agency evaluates environmental impacts, according to Ohio EPA.
Why neighbors are on edge
Across Ohio, communities have pushed back on data-center projects in recent months, citing worries about massive power demands, wastewater handling and the loss of farmland, and some municipalities have called for moratoriums while they sort out local rules. Reporting from The Ohio Newsroom traces a growing wave of local resistance and policy responses as developers look to rural sites for energy-intensive facilities. For residents in the New Albany-Jersey Township corridor, the sudden one-two punch of high-dollar buyout letters and a large permit filing feels like an escalation of development that has already reshaped the area.
For now, the biggest unanswered questions are who actually mailed the offers, whether the mailers are directly tied to the Mink Street Land Company permit filing, and how quickly regulators will move. Local media report they have reached out to the company listed on the mailers and to the permit applicant and were awaiting comment at the time of reporting. If the Ohio EPA proceeds to a full technical review, the agency's process will make application documents available as the environmental review moves forward.
