Why Trumbull County is Very High risk
Score calculated from four factors: power infrastructure, water capacity, land availability, and current exposure (known projects in the county). Trumbull County scores 86/100.
Lordstown sits adjacent to two operational gas-fired plants: Lordstown Energy Center (940 MW) and Trumbull Energy Center (950 MW, coming online 2026). The village hosts roughly 1.9 GW of natural-gas generation within minutes of the proposed site, making it among the most power-rich data-center locations in the state.
Trumbull and Mahoning counties draw from the Mahoning Valley watershed. Bristolville's water plan has not been publicly disclosed in the litigation filings.
133 acres on the former GM Lordstown Assembly Plant site, owned by BHGH Properties. The land has been zoned industrial for more than 60 years.
Bristolville 25 is in active Ohio Supreme Court litigation. OpenAI's Stargate AI campus is already operational on adjacent land. Project status depends on litigation outcome.
The facts, as filed.
Bristolville 25, explained.
Lordstown is a 3,332-person village in southern Trumbull County, an hour east of Cleveland, best known as the former home of GM's Lordstown Assembly Plant. The site of the old plant has become an unusual cluster: OpenAI's Stargate AI campus is already operational here, the gas-fired Lordstown Energy Center (940 MW) generates power adjacent to the property, and the Trumbull Energy Center (950 MW, coming online in 2026) is under construction next door. The village hosts roughly 1.9 gigawatts of natural-gas generation within minutes of the proposed Bristolville 25 site — the kind of power density that makes hyperscale developers reach for the term "once-in-a-generation site."
On October 20, 2025, Bristolville 25 Developer LLC and BHGH Properties LLC submitted a site plan to the Lordstown zoning office for a $3.6 billion, 1.65 million-square-foot data center on 133 acres straddling Trumbull and Mahoning counties. The village zoning office, under Inspector Kellie Bordner, declined to act on the application before the November 3 council meeting.
On November 3, 2025, the Lordstown Village Council voted 6–0 to ban data centers in the village. The ordinance was set to take effect December 3. On November 14, 2025, Bristolville 25 filed a petition before the Ohio Supreme Court for a peremptory writ of mandamus — arguing that its application was submitted before the ban, that village officials had failed to follow Ohio law requiring public hearings on its application, and that the village's actions "as engineered by Ms. Bordner and Mr. Ries" set a "dangerous precedent" allowing officials to "take the law into their own hands."
On December 2, 2025, the Lordstown council pulled back the ban and replaced it with a 180-day moratorium. As Solicitor Matt Ries explained: "Courts typically favor moratoriums more so than outright bans because the major distinction is that moratoriums aren't permanent. Ours is for 180 days, which would give the village or any municipality an opportunity to study the environmental pollution concerns."
The litigation is active. Bristolville 25 has filed more than 3,000 pages of evidence with the Ohio Supreme Court, including internal village emails and meeting transcripts. Council member Mark McGrail, who chairs the council's data-center moratorium committee, has stated publicly: "If it's going to be bad for the residents, we have the right to say no." Village Solicitor Ries has told the council it is important to be "prepared for the Ohio Supreme Court ruling, whether it is in favor of the township or not." Local resident Tom Czoka, who serves on the village's zoning board of appeals, has acknowledged: "This land is already zoned industrial, so it's going to be very hard to stop it."
How we got here.
For Trumbull County residents.
The mandamus question
A peremptory writ of mandamus would order Lordstown's zoning officials to process Bristolville 25's October 20 application under the zoning rules in effect on that date — meaning before both the November 3 ban and the December 2 moratorium. If the Ohio Supreme Court grants the writ, Lordstown's zoning authority over the project is effectively neutralized.
The pre-existing industrial zoning
Tom Czoka's observation that the land is "already zoned industrial" is the decisive legal point. Even without the moratorium, the village's discretion to deny is much narrower than for parcels requiring a rezoning vote. This is a structural pattern across Ohio: data centers are siting on parcels with pre-existing industrial zoning specifically to bypass public-hearing requirements.
OpenAI Stargate adjacency
OpenAI's adjacent Stargate AI data center campus sets a precedent for data-center clustering in Lordstown. Even if Bristolville 25 fails, additional projects are likely to follow as long as the gas-fired plants remain operational and the industrial zoning remains.
What residents can still do
The moratorium gives Lordstown roughly six months — until approximately July 2026 — to develop a comprehensive data-center ordinance. Council member McGrail's data-center moratorium committee is studying environmental and noise standards. Residents who want to influence the post-moratorium ordinance should engage that committee directly, not the eventual zoning hearing.
Reporting we relied on.
- WKBN — Bristolville 25 lawsuit filing, council ban repeal, moratorium adoption
- WFMJ — January 13 evidence filing (3,000+ pages)
- Spectrum News 1 — February 2026 resident profiles (Czoka family)
- Tribune Chronicle / Vindicator — council moratorium committee and Solicitor Ries comments
- Business Journal Daily — Ohio Supreme Court mandamus petition mechanics
- Marcellus Drilling News — Lordstown power-plant context
- Ohio Supreme Court docket — primary filings (Bristolville 25 v. Village of Lordstown)
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