Mansfield
We are not here to push a data center
onto a town that does not want one.
We are here to ask a harder question. Can we create enough value, together, to change the way these projects show up in a community? If the answer is no, there is no project. Everything here is a starting point for this Community Conversation.
What we have heard so far.
We have spent time reading about Mansfield and listening to people. These are the things we keep hearing. If we have any of it wrong, we want you to tell us.
- When the old plants closed, good jobs left with them, and too many young people now leave town to find work. Families also tell us that affordable childcare is hard to find.
- For some households, putting fresh, affordable food on the table every week is a real strain.
- Some neighbourhoods have waited a long time for investment and repair, and because the town has been promised things before, trust has to be earned.
Trust comes first, not last.
An earlier proposal here did not work. It left a lot of people feeling talked at rather than talked with. We want to do the opposite.
- This Community Conversation is an agreement for everyone to see, with nothing behind closed doors.
- No decision before the community and its elected representatives have had a real say.
- If the answer from Mansfield is no, then it is no.
Jobs that stay, places that matter.
- MicroLink would like to build an indoor farm on the site, creating jobs, growing fresh food year round on warmth the site would otherwise waste.
- A new business centre on the site, with space and low-cost warmth for local enterprises to start and grow. You pitch us your idea. We fund and give free heat.
- A redeveloped community centre in the middle of town, rebuilt as part of the project. Built with partners, handed over to the town, and supported every year.
Warmth that would otherwise be wasted.
A site like this gives off a great deal of low, steady warmth. Instead of throwing it away, we can pipe it to an area on site where businesses can use that heat. You pitch us the idea: a microbrewery, a tropical botanical garden, a fermentation centre, a laundromat, anything that uses heat. We fund the development. You run it, we give you free heat.
An old building, a new life.
In the town of Mansfield we would like to create a community centre that offers free day care, a job training facility, and other things the community asks us for.
- From here runs the school feeding program, supplied in part by the indoor farm down the road.
- This is a place for meetings, classes, events, and everyday use, owned and run by the town.
We would not run these things
from far away.
Richland County Foundation
The county’s trusted home for community money since 1945, and the natural keeper of a lasting fund.
North Central State & Pioneer CTC
The colleges that already train local people for skilled work, tied to real jobs here.
NECIC
A North End community organisation already running local food growing, lending, and small-business support.
Nothing moves without the community’s say.
These are not nice words. They are the rules we are asking to be held to.
- Consent first. We talk with the township, the city, the county, and residents.
- Everything in this Community Conversation stays in the open. No confidentiality on any term that affects the community.
- A community advisory board, funded so it has real teeth and its own independent advisors.
- Every promise written down, secured, and reported on publicly each year.
We are at the very beginning.
There are no approvals, no plans filed, and nothing built. Today is about listening.
Each step only happens if the one before it earns the community’s support.
It would make its own power.
Rather than draw from the public grid and compete for power that homes and local businesses need, the site would generate its own electricity on site, behind the meter.
- Because it makes its own power, it would not raise anyone’s household electricity bill.
- The power would run as cleanly and quietly as the technology allows.
- It would not need new pylons marching across the county to feed it.
Kept quiet, on purpose.
We treat that as a problem to solve in the design, not a fact to make you live with.
- The generating equipment would sit inside sound attenuating enclosures.
- We would set the limit at the property line so that, at the nearest homes, the project sits within the background sound already there, day and night.
- We would measure it, publish the readings, and be bound to change if they run too high.
Honest about the footprint,
and built to shrink it.
A project like this has a real environmental footprint, and we would rather be straight about it than gloss over it.
- Emissions controlled to the strictest standards and monitored continuously, with the readings made public.
- Because the power is made in one place, we have a single, concentrated point to capture the carbon dioxide before it reaches the air, and we intend to design the site to do that.
- Water kept low and recycled. Light kept low and shielded so the night sky stays dark.
It does not have to look
like a data center.
We do not want to drop a grey industrial box next to Mansfield.
- The buildings would be kept low, and local artisans will create something meaningful.
- The grass would be kept down the old-fashioned way, by a small flock of sheep grazing the roofs.
- From the road and from the air, the site would read as green, not industrial.
How big it would be,
shown honestly.
People deserve to picture the scale before anyone is asked to support it. As the plan takes shape we will show the exact footprint. For now, here is the kind of size we are talking about, set against places you already know.
Share a comment or an idea.
Every comment is read, and the things we hear most will shape what comes next. You do not need to support the project to take part. Disagreement is welcome and useful.
Your name (optional)
Your comment, question, or idea
Send it inForm is a placeholder · to be connected before launch
Come to a meeting
Open community sessions where you can ask anything and hear from the people behind the project. Dates to be posted here.
Write to us directly
Prefer to put it in your own words, privately. A contact address will be listed here before launch.
Bring a group
Churches, clubs, schools, and neighbourhood groups can ask us to come and speak with you, on your terms.
Let’s talk.
Come to a meeting and tell us what matters most. Hard questions are welcome.
Sit down with us early, and often, with nothing off the table.
Help us understand the town and shape the benefits so they actually land.
$100 million,
in plain terms.
This is not the offer. This is our idea of what we think could work. We would like to hear from you what is needed and how it could be implemented.
In assets, not a cheque. The split is indicative and will be set with the community.
A community centre the town owns.
A redeveloped community centre in the heart of Mansfield, rebuilt and paid for as part of the project. A place for meetings, classes, events, and everyday use, owned and run by the town.
- Rebuilt from the ground up, then handed to the town to keep.
- A space for whatever the community decides it needs most.
An indoor farm on free warmth.
A year-round indoor farm beside the campus, heated by warmth the site would otherwise waste. Fresh local food grown in town through every season, whatever the Ohio winter is doing outside.
- Warmth supplied free, so the food stays affordable.
- Growing all year, not only through the summer.
Fresh food in local schools.
A school feeding program that puts fresh, healthy food on local children’s plates, supplied in part by the indoor farm next door, and funded to keep running long after the build is done.
- Fresh meals for local schoolchildren, year after year.
- Grown nearby, and funded to last.
A startup space with free heat.
A community innovation space where local people can start a business that runs on hot water, like a microbrewery, a laundromat, aquaculture, or fermentation. The heat is free, the space is ready, and MicroLink helps fund the startup.
- Free heat and a ready space, so the costly part of starting is covered.
- Open to local ideas, with help to get them off the ground.