Prologis sues Trenton over voter-approved data center ban
Photo: Limbach Inc. (file photo)A data center developer is suing the city of Trenton, asking a federal judge to throw out the ban on large data centers that residents approved just nine days ago — arguing the city is trying to retroactively revoke approval for a project it already spent $42.3 million building.
San Francisco-based Prologis filed the lawsuit Thursday, Nov. 12, in federal court in Cincinnati, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, which reviewed the filing. The company is building a four-building, 250-megawatt data center campus in Trenton's industrial park for Amazon Web Services, and says the city had "expressly authorized" the project before voters changed the rules.
Trenton residents voted overwhelmingly on Nov. 3 to amend the city charter to ban construction of data centers that use more than 25 megawatts of electricity. The measure, Issue 17, passed 3,541 votes to 903 — nearly 80 percent support, according to the Butler County Board of Elections. Prologis's campus, at 250 megawatts, is ten times the new cap.
Prologis argues the charter amendment is unconstitutional because it violates the company's "protected rights" by trying to retroactively revoke the city's prior approval. The lawsuit states the company had already spent at least $42.3 million on the project and started construction before the Nov. 3 vote.
The developer is asking the court to declare the charter amendment "unlawful and unenforceable" and to prohibit the city from stopping the project.
According to the lawsuit, within days of the Nov. 3 vote, attorneys representing "taxpayers" demanded that the city revoke Prologis's zoning certificate and threatened to bring litigation in the city's name to stop the project if the city failed to act.
The city administration and the city legal director did not respond to voicemails from the Enquirer asking whether Trenton planned to fight the lawsuit by publication time.
The Trenton vote was one of 18 Ohio municipalities to pass bans or other restrictions on data centers on Nov. 3, the most of any state. The measure reached the ballot only after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled on Sept. 1 that Trenton's city council had acted unlawfully in refusing to certify residents' petition, ordering it sent to voters.
Prologis's Trenton campus is separate from a much larger proposed Amazon data center just outside the city limits — an 18-building, $5 billion campus on about 600 acres in St. Clair and Madison townships. Trenton withdrew its bid to annex that land in September, and St. Clair Township is separately weighing a zoning change that would ban data centers there.
Whether a project already under construction earns vested rights to continue under the rules in place before a new restriction is a question Ohio courts have never settled, attorneys for the residents' group Conserve Ohio have said — and the Prologis lawsuit now puts that question squarely before a federal judge.
Sources: The Cincinnati Enquirer, "Data center developer sues Ohio city over ban just approved by voters" (Nov. 12, 2026, full text verified); Spectrum News via Ally Daily, "Ohio voters back data center bans or restrictions in at least 14 communities" (Nov. 6, 2026); The Inference, "Prologis' 250-megawatt Amazon campus in Trenton meets a new 25-megawatt voter cap" (Nov. 9, 2026); Ohio Supreme Court, State ex rel. Blankenship v. Trenton City Council, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-3406 (Sept. 1, 2026).
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