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HOWLAND -- Local leaders heard from one of the region's economic development leaders, who warned that the talks and landscape around data centers could change over the next 10 to 15 years.
Michael McGiffin, Lake to River's vice president of engagement and investor relations, opened discussions at a recent Trumbull County Council of Governments meeting by discussing the state's economic development enterprise -- explaining that it was originally led by the Ohio Department of Development as an agency.
"At that point, 2011, Ohio was the 41st best state for business; it was No. 2 in job loss across the entire country," McGiffin said. "It was not a strong picture for economic activity compared to the other states, and Gov. (John) Kasich and the legislative assembly, at the time, recognized that to change that, they needed to make a couple of changes in how the system operates."
McGiffin said officials then were trying to figure out why development was poor and whether the state was keeping up with the clients it wanted to attract.
McGiffin also questioned whether a publicly traded or privately held business wanted its finances or business records as public record -- noting that the answer was "largely no."
"In 2011, the No. 1 public record requester of the state of Ohio for economic development activity was the state of Kentucky -- attempting to find where those leads were," McGiffin said. "So that they, in turn, get into communication with those companies."
He said it was at that point that the legislative assembly voted to shut down the Department of Development and create JobsOhio, a private organization and 501(c)3 enterprise.
McGiffin said the area was part of a region called Team NEO, which encompassed 18 counties that included Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Sandusky, noting that Trumbull County communities like Warren ran the risk of never being looked at the same way.
He said Team NEO had a lot of businesses knocking on Cleveland and Akron's door, but this area was different because it has a border economy, state Route 11 -- which he called "grossly underutilized" -- and brownfields.
McGiffin said since Lake to River's launch in 2024, 19 projects have been returned to the region, with $1 billion in capital investment, adding that the group now manages 41 projects and $3.9 billion.
DATA CENTERS
McGiffin admitted that "not one" of the leads that trickled to Lake to River two years ago was a data center, but now it's nearly 10, adding that they were dealing in manufacturing, fulfillment and logistics before then.
"We didn't expect the volume of inquiries for data centers, so we had to get up to speed pretty quick," McGiffin said.
McGiffin said there's a seven- to 10-year window where a community can benefit "tremendously" from pursuing a data center development, noting three potential outcomes.
"I believe that data centers will stop paying communities to locate; the first, if any of the communities in this room don't pursue and engage with a data center, there are certainly other communities within this country that would," McGiffin said. "The supply will inevitably catch up to the demand, so the growth will slow down."
McGiffin said, like any other progressive change, apathy catches up -- noting past hot-button topics to be pretty normal today, considering it to be a good case with data centers.
"When you all host a meeting about entertaining a moratorium, or even bringing up zoning changes -- you won't have 100 residents in your town hall 10 years from now," McGiffin said. "That developer doesn't need to incentivize your community to get out of the way anymore."
McGiffin said he made it "very clear" before speaking to officials in Conneaut that he wasn't going to advocate for their council to pursue development, but said that moratoriums are bad for business.
"I know that when I say that, you essentially have to take my word for that; but what I can say is, when other communities go into moratoriums, we have other projects in those communities -- that are tied to data centers or data center developments that have called me, being like, 'What's going on with this moratorium? Will it impact us,'" McGiffin said.
He said he could not quantify the number of companies considering a site in a community that don't even call because of perceived instability.
McGiffin said Lake to River officials didn't want to take public officials to New Albany because he thought it was going to be "too far" of an extreme example, adding that he wanted to see a data center in Pittsburgh's Strip District called H5, which was converted from an old office building and was invisible.