A New Jersey developer is proposing a billion-dollar AI data center in Monroeville, a Huron County village of roughly 1,300 people. Decimal Digital bought 48 acres in the Fort Monroe Industrial Park in 2025 and is now pitching a 100-megawatt facility called Project Eagle Ridge. The proposal follows problems at a cryptocurrency-mining operation across the street, and the village’s yearlong moratorium on new data center projects, which ends in March, means Decimal Digital must make its case to residents before the project can move forward.
That skepticism is baked into the calendar. Monroeville is one of 18 Ohio municipalities and townships deciding data-center-related measures on the Nov. 3 ballot, according to Ohio Capital Journal. In Monroeville’s case, an advisory measure asks voters whether the village should allow new development — a nonbinding gauge of public sentiment that won’t change any laws but will tell officials, and Decimal Digital, how the wind is blowing. As News 5 Cleveland reports, Decimal Digital CEO Roshan Shah said he expects the ballot response to be unfavorable, even as his company tries to make its case directly to residents.
A Bitcoin Bust Still Haunts the Industrial Park
The timing is awkward because Monroeville is still untangling the mess left by a troubled cryptocurrency-mining operation sitting directly across the street from Decimal Digital’s proposed site, inside the same Fort Monroe Industrial Park. The mining facility is tied to Gray Matter Holdings legal disputes, and the property is now controlled by a court-appointed receiver after the operation left the village and other secured creditors owed $1.3 million, according to officials cited by thecooldown.com. The same outlet reports that village leaders are still juggling persistent noise issues and a receiver-led court process tied to the site.
Decimal Digital is actually a tenant at that same crypto-mining hub and is competing to buy the mining property through the receiver, with hopes of cleaning it up. Shah described the site as an antiquated bitcoin-mining operation with legacy equipment that needs to be replaced, calling it unbearably loud. He has said he wants Project Eagle Ridge to be an architectural masterpiece rather than a cookie-cutter data center — a pointed contrast with the neighbor he’s trying to help clear away…