People overtook the street and stopped traffic: Indianapolis’ latest data center debate

Residents of Indianapolis' Martindale Brightwood neighborhood and organizers from multiple community groups rallied Monday against a possible data center development at the site of the former Sherman Drive-In theater. Over a hundred people flashed signs, chanted, and overtook the intersection at 25th and Sherman, stopping traffic.

A pastor led a lineup of speakers from the neighborhood groups in cheers and chants while cars driving by honked in agreement. The group then marched down the sidewalk and back in front of the proposed site before claiming the busy street.

Gina Lewis Alexander, a protester with the Oasis of Hope Baptist Church, has been in the community since 1997.

“I’m protesting because this community, Martindale Brightwood, is just now fighting all of the remediation and the environmental concerns from the 60s and 70s. We’re still fighting those,” she told WFYI. “We don’t need any more environmental issues, not for this community and not for our children.”

Alexander is also a member of One Voice Martindale Brightwood, an umbrella coalition of neighborhood organizations such as Hillside Neighborhood Association, Brightwood Concerned Citizens and the Environmental Justice Collaborative.

The possible data center is the latest in a series of fights over data centers in Indiana. Recently, Google withdrew a proposal for a data center in Franklin Township after community residents pushed back.

The site for the possible data center has not yet been officially proposed — according to organizers and Ron Gibson, a City-County Council member who represents the neighborhood.

The current zoning designation is for industrial use and doesn’t allow data centers, so the city would have to vote on re-designating that parcel, he said.

Gibson is supportive of the data center. He said it will bring benefits to the area and held that there is misinformation about the Martindale Brightwood project. He said it is different from the Google project proposal that folded last month.

“It’s different in terms of technology, it’s different in terms of size, and it’s different in terms of the developer’s overall mission,” he said.

The difference in size appears to be significant: The proposed facility in Martindale Brightwood would occupy about 13 acres, whereas the Franklin Township proposal would have affected a 468-acre lot.

A spokesperson for the Department of Metropolitan Development could not immediately be reached for comment to confirm the company has not yet filed a proposal with the city.

An informational memo from Metrobloks, the company behind the plan, that Gibson shared with WFYI said it would be “low-impact,” quiet, and improve the site’s appearance.

Metrobloks said the data center would be used for diverse purposes, including general computing, AI and machine learning.

“Indianapolis is emerging as a cost-effective Midwest data center hub, driven by industry-leading tax incentives and competitive power pricing,” read a description of the project.

Organizers with One Voice hoped the rally would show unity and protest further pollution of the area. They don’t want an outside company using electric and water utilities. They worry their fees will go up with a fully-functioning data center.

Resident Jacklyn McMillan Gunn, secretary at One Voice and vice president for Hillside Neighborhood Association, was resolute against a new data center.

“We haven’t received anything from the Department of Metropolitan Development yet, but when we do, we will definitely be prepared to challenge it, because we made it quite plainly that we don’t want the data center in our community,” she said.

Contact WFYI data journalist Zak Cassel at zcassel@wfyi.org.