If you’ve been paying attention to what’s happening in Adams County, OH lately, you’ve probably heard the debate — and it’s a loud one. Proposed data center projects near the former Stuart and Killen power plant sites have divided the community, and we’ve been fielding a version of the same question from buyers and sellers alike in the immediate area: What does this mean for my property value?
Before we go any further, we want to be upfront about something: we are not researchers, we are not politicians, and we have no stake in whether these projects move forward or don’t. We’re a local real estate brokerage, and our only interest here is giving you an honest, grounded answer to a real estate question. We’ll also be transparent about the limits of what the research can tell us, because rural communities like ours are genuinely underrepresented in the data, and we think you deserve to know that rather than have it glossed over.
With that said, here’s what we do know.
Why Rural Communities Are Being Targeted
It’s worth understanding why places like Adams County are on the radar for these projects in the first place. Research from Rice University (in Texas) found that hyperscale data center developers typically choose rural communities primarily because of low land costs and abundant available space. Rice Business’ Tommy Pan Fang is quoted as saying “The cloud feels weightless, but it rests on real choices about land, power and proximity.” The study from Rice focuses on the location choices for centers and why they might choose a rural setting over an urban one, power and land costs being big factors. Land costs in Adams County meet that low cost desired by some developers relative to many other areas of the country and even cost of land across Ohio itself. That context matters when evaluating what kind of development relationship a rural county can realistically expect with developers, and it’s worth keeping in mind as local negotiations unfold.
That dynamic is playing out across southern Ohio right now. Just last week, the federal government broke ground on what could become one of the largest data center campuses in the country — a 10-gigawatt facility on the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Pike County, about an hour from Adams County, backed by SoftBank and the Department of Energy (WOUB Public Media article). The Piketon project shares some surface similarities with what’s being proposed here — a large facility on a former industrial/government site in a rural Ohio county — but there are meaningful differences. The Piketon site is on federal DOE land with existing infrastructure, federal backing, and apparent local political support. State Senator Shane Wilkin described it as a generational opportunity for the region and noted he had not heard opposition from the community. The Adams County situation, by contrast, involves private development on former utility land with active, organized community opposition. Those are different circumstances, and the outcomes may well be different too.
The Factors That Actually Determine Impact
The honest answer to “will this affect my property value?” is: it depends — and the specific variables matter a lot.
Residents in communities facing data center proposals consistently raise the same core concerns: declining property values, higher utility bills, and environmental and health impacts. (FXBG Advance) Whether those fears bear out in practice has a lot to do with immediate local conditions. Here are the factors that carry the most weight:
Proximity and siting: This is probably the most important variable. There’s a meaningful difference between a data center sited on or near former industrial property and one built adjacent to an established residential neighborhood. In Mount Orab, just about 45 minutes from Adams County, the proposed site is a thousand-acre mega-site on the southeast corner of the village and while it’s zoned for heavy industry, its edges are close enough to residential areas that property value concerns became a central part of the community’s organized opposition. The Adams County sites, by contrast, are proposed to be built on or near former power plant land in a much more rural area. This distinction matters when evaluating likely residential impact.
Utility costs: This is a legitimate concern backed by documented numbers. In July 2025, Ohio’s Public Utilities Commission approved a tariff requiring large data centers to pay for at least 85% of their projected electricity usage for up to 12 years, regardless of actual consumption (Schar School)— a direct response to fears that residential customers would absorb costs driven by industrial-scale energy demand. Those fears aren’t unfounded. According to PJM’s independent market monitor, data centers were responsible for 63% of the price increase in the 2025/2026 capacity auction, translating to approximately $9.3 billion in costs recovered from ratepayers across the PJM grid (WCPO) — the same grid that serves Ohio. That’s not an abstract figure: Ohio residents are already estimated to be paying roughly $16 more per month in capacity market costs as a result. (The Statehouse News Bureau) Whether the new PUCO tariff fully protects ratepayers in smaller rural communities going forward is still an open question, and one worth watching closely as any Adams County project develops.
Tax abatements: When developers receive long-term property tax abatements, those facilities may not contribute meaningfully to the local tax base for years. In Mount Orab, OH, residents only discovered that tax abatements were part of the deal through public records requests Aterio — which fueled much of the backlash there. Understanding the specific tax terms negotiated in Adams County, OH will matter a great deal to how the broader community benefits, or doesn’t.
Rural context: Research from the Brookings Institution on data centers in rural communities highlights a core tension: these projects are framed nationally as urgent strategic infrastructure, but their impacts are experienced locally — where governance capacity, community engagement, and enforceable commitments to residents often determine whether the benefits are broadly shared or narrowly captured. (Brookings)
Construction timelines: These are not quick builds. Large-scale data center campuses can involve years of around-the-clock construction activity, which is a practical near-term consideration for anyone buying or selling close to a proposed site, regardless of the long-term outcome.
What the Broader Research Shows — And Where It Falls Short
The academic research on data centers and residential property values is more mixed than the loudest voices on either side tend to suggest. The most frequently cited study comes from George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis, which examined thousands of home sales in Northern Virginia — the densest data center market in the world — and found that researchers could not establish statistical evidence that proximity to a data center persistently suppresses residential property values. (Schar School) That’s a meaningful finding, and it’s the most rigorous data we have.
But here’s the important caveat, and we think it matters for Adams County specifically: the lead researcher himself noted that Northern Virginia is an unusual residential market that has chronically underbuilt housing, meaning pent-up demand may be masking effects that would show up differently elsewhere — and that more research is needed before drawing conclusions about other types of communities. (Brookings) A rural Ohio county is not Northern Virginia, and we’d rather tell you that plainly than let a study do more work than it’s actually designed to do.
The honest reality is that rural communities like ours are underrepresented in the existing research. What studies do consistently find is that outcomes vary based on siting, developer engagement, and whether infrastructure improvements reach surrounding neighborhoods — but most of that research is drawn from suburban and exurban markets where data centers have operated long enough to generate measurable data. Adams County doesn’t have that comparable data yet.
Our Bottom Line
Here’s the clearest answer we can give you: the best available research does not support the idea that data centers automatically suppress nearby residential property values — but that research has real limitations when applied to rural communities, and we think it’s important to say so.
What the documented evidence does show is that the concerns most worth watching are utility cost protections, tax abatement terms, and how close facilities end up to homes or potential homesites. Those aren’t abstract worries — they’re the specific issues that have driven real opposition in Mount Orab and other Ohio communities, and they’re the details that will ultimately matter most to property owners here.
If you’re making a buying or selling decision in Adams County right now, you are not behind the curve. The final terms negotiated around siting buffers, utility protections, and tax structure will shape the real outcome for property owners here — and those details are still being determined. Don’t panic, but do pay attention to how those negotiations unfold. We will be.
Common sense also tell us that each and every selling situation is unique, therefore each property will have its own unique set of circumstances that affect its selling potential. Each buyer is also unique and certain factors regarding these data centers may not affect their decisions. Making predictions like these is tough in a rural area like ours in which each property is especially unique.
This is an issue we will keep our eye on in the coming years as developments take place and real impacts are evident. As always, if you have questions about how any of this might affect a specific property you’re considering, we’re here to talk it through.
Have questions? Get in touch with a local Adams County, OH real estate agent…
Want to learn more about the area of Manchester, OH where these proposed projects will be taking place? Find more information about Manchester, OH and see current property listings here.
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Sources: WCPO 9 I-Team; Fox 19 / WXIX; Local 12 / WKRC; Brown County Press; Ohio Capital Journal; George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis; Rice University; Brookings Institution; LandApp.com; Signal Ohio; WOUB Public Media; FXGB Advance