St. Bernard Village Council is considering a temporary pause on data center developments to give the village time to examine effects of these facilities and consider regulations. Council could vote on a 12-month moratorium at its meeting Thursday night.
The legislation was recommended to council after the owner of the now-vacant property that was previously the St. Bernard Soap Company proposed a 150,000 square foot data center. The site is part of Procter & Gamble's old Ivorydale facility.
“We’ve recently become aware of the potential for data centers being located within the village. It is something that we feel that we really need to study in greater detail, so that we understand more about them — what they are, what the potential pros and cons of them might be if they fit, where they might fit, where they really don’t fit, and just really getting regulations in place so that we can deal with them now and into the future,” said Mark Wendling, the village's Director of Public Safety and Service.
He says St. Bernard currently doesn’t have any regulations that directly apply to data centers, and he isn’t aware of any data centers operating within its limits.
“We don’t really feel like they’re permitted under our code anywhere in the village as it currently stands,” Wendling said. “They’re not truly warehouses, in our opinion. So, we just don't know where they would fit.”
The moratorium would halt acceptance and processing of applications, issuance of permits, and approvals for the establishment of data centers within St. Bernard for a year. It has support from the neighboring Spring Grove Village Council as well as some St. Bernard residents.
Council meets Thursday night at 7 p.m. at St. Bernard’s Administration Building at 110 Washington Ave.
'We are not proposing a hyperscale campus'
CAI Investments LLC, the owner of the St. Bernard Soap Company property, is proposing converting part of its building on Spring Grove Avenue from industrial to data center use. Tom Breidenstein, an attorney for CAI Investments, shared plans with council in August.
“We are not proposing a hyperscale data center campus,” Breidenstein said. “No doubt you’ve heard horror stories from other communities about hyperscale data centers taking over 500 acres of farmland ... this is the exact opposite of that. It’s a very small data center by data center standards.”
The proposed data center would be 150,000 square feet with 24-megawatt capacity. For comparison, the Amazon Web Services data center under construction in Butler County is planned to be approximately 900,000 square feet with 250-megawatt capacity.
CAI Investments submitted an application to St. Bernard’s Board of Zoning Appeals for conditional use approval, since the village’s zoning code does not include data centers currently. Breidenstein says the data center would be essentially a warehouse for computer systems, and warehouses are permitted in the manufacturing district where the property is located. The Board of Zoning Appeals is set to consider the issue at its next meeting on Oct. 12.
Breidenstein says his client “made tremendous efforts” to put the St. Bernard Soap Company facility to use since operations ceased in 2024, but no manufacturing company has been interested in full use of the 640,000 square foot building. A nitrile glove manufacturer recently scrapped its plans for the site.
Mayor Jonathan Stuchell says the village has not made a decision on the data center project yet, and it's looking out for the well-being of the community. He adds the former soap factory is dealing with fire code violations for a lack of fire monitoring and suppression.
“We hope that we can work with the investment group to help find the best possible use for this valuable industrial asset,” Stuchell said at the August meeting.
Breidenstein says if council approves the moratorium, the data center tenant will walk from the property.
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