Prologis Shelbyville Data Center, Shelbyville, Indiana

Prologis, the California-based industrial real estate company, wants to build a data center campus of up to 13 buildings on 576 acres in Shelbyville, in Shelby County, Indiana, about 30 miles southeast of Indianapolis. The land lies east of the State Road 44 and Interstate 74 interchange, and 429 acres of it needed to be annexed into the city and rezoned from agricultural to industrial. Two Duke Energy transmission lines already cross the property, built for a manufacturing plant on a neighbouring site that never came to fruition; no tenant or power figure has been disclosed.

The Shelbyville Common Council approved the plan on Monday, April 6, 2026, with a crowd of objectors in the room. By 4-2, with one member abstaining over a conflict of interest, it approved an economic development agreement giving Prologis a 30-year, 100 percent personal property tax abatement and a 10-year, 50 percent abatement on real property. In return the company must spend at least $2 billion and create 25 jobs for every data center building; it says the finished 11-building campus would employ 450 people full time at an average salary of $100,000. The city said construction would still need separate applications, permits and regulatory approvals.

Connie Lindsay, a Shelbyville resident of more than 30 years and a real estate agent, started a petition against the annexation that has passed 7,500 signatures. "The environmental issues, health and safety issues, we're losing valuable farm ground," Lindsay told WRTV. A lawsuit over the annexation and rezoning went the city's way on July 29, 2026, when Shelby Superior Court No. 2 Judge David Riggins ruled for Shelbyville in a 15-page order.

The mayor made things worse. A video that went viral on June 3, seemingly filmed without his knowledge, showed Mayor Scott Furgeson holding a "No Data Centers" sign and saying: "I've seen a lot of these all over the town, but I only see them in sh***y houses." "It doesn't matter if they're rentals or not, they're still human beings," a woman at the table told him. His first statement said only that he "regrets that his choice of words may have caused offense"; two weeks later, in a video, he called his remarks "disrespectful," "hurtful" and "wrong." "I take full responsibility for what I said," Furgeson said. "I sincerely apologize to all of you."