St. Joseph County approves economic development agreement with Amazon Data Services

The St. Joseph County Board of Commissioners on Aug. 13 approved Resolution R-8-C-2024, an economic development agreement tying Amazon Data Services’ planned data center development to tax abatements, community enhancement fees and infrastructure commitments.

Bill Shaleo, the county’s economic development director, described the project in his presentation as a large-scale investment (the transcript cites “about $11,000,000,000 in scale”) and said the development agreement is “the glue that ties this whole project together.” Shaleo told the board the agreement contemplates real property tax abatements tied to individual data center shells — a 10-year, 50% abatement per data shell as described in the meeting — and an enterprise information technology equipment exemption on personal property (the transcript cites a 35-year window at 85% value for that exemption). He also described a package of community enhancement fees and infrastructure…