The worst kept secret in Indiana — Meta building a $10 billion data center campus in Lebanon — was officially unveiled Wednesday with complete details on water, electricity and community investments.
State and Meta officials gathered inside the Farmers Bank Fieldhouse for a “groundbreaking” complete with shovels. The campus will be part of the Limitless Exploration/Advanced Pace (LEAP) Research and Innovation District
Rachel Peterson, vice president of data centers at Meta, focused on becoming good neighbors in Boone County.
“This is our 27th data center here in the U.S. … a tenet of our data center program from day one has been to play a really strong, positive role in the communities that we’re in,” she said. “We want to be part of the community, to hire locally, to be really engaged in the community, and to give back and play a really positive role in the long-term growth and success of that community.”
Meta, which owns technologies like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, will construct 13 total buildings spanning four million square feet on 1,500 acres. That includes 10 data center buildings, as well as facilities for logistics, warehousing and administrative support functions.
About 4,000 construction jobs will be created at peak and 300 ongoing jobs will be created when operational.
Peterson said Meta hopes to be online with the first phase by late 2027 or early 2028.
“Data centers are going to be important,” Gov. Mike Braun told the assembled crowd. “They’re going to lift wages in this state, and that’s a goal of ours too, to make sure that as we grow business, we’re growing wages.”
But he said projects can’t come “at the expense of Hoosier’s quality of life or their electric bills.”
“That’s the narrative that we need to explain,” he continued. “So that you’re getting economic development, and the ratepayer — who is fatigued in many different ways — isn’t going to be carrying that burden.”
Hoosiers have become strongly vocal about data centers coming to their communities, especially when it comes to the water and electricity that would be consumed.
Meta has committed to paying the full costs for energy used at the campus so Hoosier residents won’t be hit with those costs.
Peterson promised Meta will put “100% clean and renewable energy back onto the grid — that’s new energy supply to the grid,” through a mix of solar and wind projects in the region.
In terms of water, Peterson said Meta will “restore 100%” of all water consumed by the data center back to local watersheds.
A news release said Meta will partner with Arable to provide irrigation technology to independent farmers in Indiana’s Upper Wabash River Basin. The project will restore 200 million gallons of water each year for the next ten years while reducing costs for farmers.
And the company will revitalize a section of the Deer Creek stream to improve ecological health of the wetland corridor by expanding vegetation and creating a better habitat for pollinators.
In terms of incentives for the project, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation committed a 35-year data center sales tax exemption for a minimum $1 billion in eligible capital invested within the first six years.
For the first additional $2.2 billion and each additional $1.6 billion in eligible capital invested within the first 17 years, the company will be eligible for tax exemptions for an additional five-year period, up to a total of 50 years.
The incentives are performance-based, meaning the company is eligible to claim state benefits once investments are made and jobs are created, a news release said.
Other commitments from Meta include $1 million per year for 20 years in energy assistance via the Boone REMC Community Fund; $100,000 to launch a career collaboration with local high schools for career exploration and work-based learning; and community actions grants supporting schools and nonprofits in the fall.
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