St. Joseph County approves $114 million water and sewer agreement to support Amazon Data Services project

St. Joseph County commissioners voted Aug. 6 to approve a $114,000,000 Water and Sewer Infrastructure Agreement with ADS (referred to in the meeting as Amazon Data Services) to design and build water and sewer improvements needed for the ADS data‑center development and related projects in the county's IEC area.

Bill Schallio, the county’s economic development director, told the board the contract is structured so ADS provides funds and the county will design and construct improvements. Schallio described the $114,000,000 total as approximately $62,700,000 for water improvements and $51,300,000 for sewer improvements and said project expenses already incurred may be reimbursed. He said the agreement includes latecomer-fee mechanisms and that the county has identified about $11,442,670 in possible latecomer charges payable over a 10‑year period.

"This is a fantastic deal for the county," Schallio said, emphasizing that the arrangement would avoid bonding and additional taxpayer obligations. An unidentified county commissioner reiterated that "the taxpayers are not on the hook for any of this." The presentation said water infrastructure built under the agreement would be turned over to the town of New Carlisle and sewer improvements would be turned over to the city of South Bend for long-term maintenance.

The board voted to approve the agreement. Commissioners Hazen, Dieter and Baxmayer were recorded as voting "aye." No recorded nay votes, abstentions or recusals were announced.

Votes at a glance

- ADS Water and Sewer Infrastructure Agreement — approved; recorded vote: Hazen (aye), Dieter (aye), Baxmayer (aye). - Fillmore Road bid packets (three bids) — accepted for review and referred to county attorneys and engineering — approved (recorded ayes: Hazen, Dieter, Baxmayer). - Termination of Tyler agreement (IT vendor) — approved (recorded ayes: Hazen, Dieter, Baxmayer). - Right of entry for county-owned property at State Road 2 & Larison (one-year stockpile yard) — approved (recorded ayes: Hazen, Dieter, Baxmayer). - Roberts Environmental addendum for follow-up sampling (Board of Health request) — approved (recorded ayes: Hazen, Dieter, Baxmayer). - Consent agenda — approved (recorded ayes: Hazen, Dieter, Baxmayer).

Why it matters

County officials said the ADS agreement creates a mechanism for the county to build infrastructure that supports the ADS/Amazon Data Services development and other private projects in the area without issuing bonds or directly spending local taxpayer funds for the core construction. The agreement also creates a process to recover oversizing or additional construction costs from later developers through latecomer fees.

What the agreement does and next steps

According to the presentation: the county will design and construct water and sewer improvements; ADS will provide funds and reimbursement for qualified costs; revenues collected from new users within mapped service areas may be used to repay ADS for oversizing or related improvements. County staff said the agreement is detailed and signed by ADS and the redevelopment commission; the board was the final signatory.

The board did not discuss detailed timelines for construction or turnover beyond the statement that water infrastructure will be turned over to New Carlisle and sewer to South Bend for long-term operations. Commissioners did not announce a public hearing or further vote schedule tied to the construction timeline at the meeting.

Reporting notes

Meeting materials presented figures and maps summarizing service areas and latecomer-fee exhibits. The amounts and some numeric readouts in the meeting packet and the spoken presentation were read aloud in the meeting; meeting transcript contains uneven formatting of some numeric lines (see clarifying details).