Shelbyville data center plan sparks outrage after mayor’s remarks

Mayor Scott Furgeson’s filmed remark about anti-data-center signs turned a bruising Shelbyville land-use fight into a sharper class dispute. After saying, “I’ve seen a lot of these all over town, but I only see them in sh***y houses,” Furgeson later said he regretted that his choice of words may have offended people and insisted he was talking about property maintenance, not the residents themselves.

The backlash landed in a city of about 19,500 people already wrestling with a proposed $2 billion data center complex backed by Prologis. The plan would cover roughly 429 acres near State Road 44 and Interstate 74 and could eventually include as many as 11 data center buildings. Shelbyville’s Common Council approved annexation, rezoning and an economic-development agreement with Prologis on April 6 in a 4-2-1 vote, but the city says any construction would still need separate applications, permits and other regulatory approvals before building can begin.

Opposition has been building for months. On January 5, the council voted 5-1 to annex the 429 acres, and hundreds of residents packed the meeting, overflowing a venue with capacity for 90. Since then, organizers have circulated petitions that reportedly drew more than 2,000 signatures and, in some coverage, more than 6,700. Residents have focused on water use, power demand, environmental and health concerns, and the loss of farmland and Shelby County’s agricultural character.

The dispute has also exposed a deeper tension over who gets heard when a rural edge city is asked to absorb an industrial-scale project. Critics say the mayor’s remark brushed aside renters and working-class homeowners who fear noise, traffic, utility strain and possible property value declines, even as city leaders have framed the project as economic development tied to a major outside investment.

Shelbyville is not alone in that fight. Similar data-center proposals in Pittsboro, Henry County, Decatur Township, Morgan County and Indianapolis’ Martindale-Brightwood have drawn strong public resistance over energy and water concerns. For Shelbyville, the fight now reaches beyond one 429-acre parcel near I-74: it has become a test of whether promised growth outweighs the costs borne by the people living closest to it.