QTS Realty Trust disclosed plans for a $10 billion data center campus in Van Wert, Ohio, a municipality of roughly 10,500 residents located 70 miles southwest of Toledo. The proposal represents the single largest hyperscale facility announcement in Ohio history and places the developer at the center of a regional power and fiber buildout that has been quietly underway since late 2022.
Van Wert city leaders confirmed the project Thursday after months of confidential negotiations. The campus will occupy what local officials have termed a "mega site"—land parcels assembled over 18 months with minimal public disclosure. QTS has not released a construction timeline, but county filings indicate the first phase could begin site preparation by Q2 2025. The developer has secured conditional tax abatements through 2045, structured as a 75 percent reduction on real property improvements for the first 15 years, stepping down 5 percent annually thereafter. Van Wert's existing annual general fund budget is approximately $12 million.
The location decision reflects three factors allocators should mark. First, the campus sits within 8 miles of American Electric Power's recently upgraded substation, which completed a $340 million capacity expansion in September 2024. That substation now routes 1,200 megawatts to regional industrial users, with 600 megawatts of uncommitted capacity—enough to serve roughly 12 large-scale data center buildings at modern densities. Second, Van Wert lies on the intersection of two long-haul fiber routes: Zayo's Chicago-to-Charlotte backbone and Lumen's Detroit-to-Indianapolis line, both upgraded to 400G capacity in 2023. Third, the town offers water access via the 13-mile Van Wert Reservoir, which holds 1.1 billion gallons and currently serves fewer than 15,000 residents and light industrial users. Cooling infrastructure for hyperscale facilities typically requires 1 million gallons per megawatt annually.
QTS is majority-owned by Blackstone, which acquired the REIT in a $10 billion take-private transaction that closed in August 2021. Since that acquisition, QTS has announced or completed five campus-scale projects, but none exceeding $3 billion in total capitalization. The Van Wert figure—if fully deployed—would make this the firm's largest single-market commitment by a factor of three. Blackstone's infrastructure funds have allocated roughly $50 billion to digital infrastructure since 2020, with data centers representing approximately 40 percent of that total. The firm has not commented on the financing structure, but comparable projects have typically blended Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust capital with construction-phase leverage at 55-60 percent loan-to-cost.
Allocators should track three items through mid-2025. First, Ohio's Public Utilities Commission must approve any power purchase agreements exceeding 500 megawatts; QTS will likely file by March. Second, Van Wert's abatement structure expires for new projects in December 2025, which suggests the developer may accelerate land acquisition for adjacent parcels before year-end. Third, the Army Corps of Engineers holds jurisdiction over water withdrawal permits for facilities using more than 500,000 gallons daily; that filing has not yet appeared in federal dockets.
The Van Wert reservoir holds enough capacity to cool approximately 1,100 megawatts of compute infrastructure without new surface water sources.