Record · Agreements
Allen County CRA No. 1 Agreement with Bistrozzi LLC (data-center tax abatement)
cra-agreement
provenance
- source_path data/documents/legal/prr-mandamus/prr-production-2026-06-05/CRA.pdf
- produced_in Allen County public-records production 2026-06-05 (response item 3)
- pages Res #548-25 pp.1-2; CRA Agreement pp.3-12; Exhibit A project-site map p.13
- content_verified 2026-06-07
- evidence scan + native text (county-produced PDF)
parties
- county Allen County, Ohio — Board of County Commissioners
- commissioners
- Cory Noonan
- Beth Seibert
- Brian Winegardner
- clerk Brittany N. Woods
- company BISTROZZI LLC (a Delaware limited liability company)
- company_counsel Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP — Scott J. Ziance (sjziance@vorys.com)
authorization
- cra_resolution
- number 304-25
- date 2025-04-17
- action created Allen County CRA No. 1
- approval_resolution
- number 548-25
- date 2025-07-10
- action approved + authorized the CRA Agreement
- cra_designation_number 003-99003-396
- effective_date 2025-07-10
- company_signed 2025-08-26
- statute R.C. 3735.65-3735.70 (the CRA Act)
abatement
- type real property tax exemption
- percent 75
- term_years 15
- scope Per new Building at the Project Site (real property — buildings/structures). The project total may exceed 15 years across phases, but no single Building exceeds 15.
- commencement_window no Exemption commences after tax lien date 2040-01-01 (§3)
- end_window no Exemption extends beyond tax lien date 2054-01-01 (§3)
- agreement_termination Dec 31 of the later of 2055 or the year after the last Exemption (§21)
- real_property_only yes
company_estimates
- capital_investment_usd ~500000000
- jobs ~50
- annual_payroll_usd ~4000000
- current_employees 0
- note Jobs/payroll may be employed by the Company or its Affiliates (common-control group); the Parties acknowledge actuals may differ significantly from these estimates.
school_compensation
- required yes
- statute R.C. 5709.82(B)(1); R.C. 3735.671
- school_district Elida Local School District
- jvsd Apollo Career Center (JVSD)
- school_board_authorization
- resolution 5-25-2
- date 2025-05-20
- school_board_authorization_date_note RESOLVED 2026-07-13 (issue #1477): the Elida BOE PILOT authorization is a SINGLE event on 2025-05-20 (resolution 5-25-2). Three independent sources agree: (1) this CRA (county-produced); (2) the PAAC board minutes — "School District PILOT $250,000/yr proposed (Elida board 2025-05-20)" (paac-board-minutes.minutes.yaml, 2025-03-27 p.39); and (3) contemporaneous news — The Lima News, "Talks continue for proposed American Township data center" (2025-05-27), which reports "On May 20, the Elida Board of Education approved a resolution to accept a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) from Bistrozzi, LLC." (canonical URL https://www.limaohio.com/top-stories/2025/05/27/talks-continue-for-proposed-american-township-data-center/ — a cited secondary source NOT committed to this corpus; it is a 2025 article outside the #1477 capture set, so no source_file exists, and limaohio.com is bot-gated/uncapturable, see data/documents/limaohio/SOURCES.md). NO SECOND (2026) authorization event was identified in the REVIEWED SOURCES — the search scope was: web searches for Elida BOE / PILOT / data-center coverage across 2025–2026, plus the in-corpus CRA and PAAC minutes; the district's PRIMARY BoardDocs minutes (go.boarddocs.com/oh/eli) were NOT pulled. An unverified research claim of a "2026-05-20" PILOT approval is best read as a same-date-different-year artifact (the March 2026 coverage is the Google *reveal*, not a new authorization). Do NOT add a duplicate 2026 PILOT event absent a primary Elida BOE source. Note "5-25-2" is the district's own 2025-05-20 resolution numbering (year-month-sequence), not a 2026 date. [verified as to 2025-05-20; the "no 2026 event" is a NEGATIVE finding bounded by the reviewed sources above — a primary BoardDocs pull would settle it.]
- amounts_public no
- statutory_floor R.C. 3735.671(A)(2) — the County estimated the compensation equals/exceeds 25% of the foregone taxes (Res #494-25, 2025-06-24); the actual dollar terms are in a separate, non-public School District Compensation Agreement.
- notice_served_by Allen Economic Development Group (AEDG), Cynthia Leis (President/CEO), 2025-06-25 — both superintendents (Apollo: Keith Horner; Elida: Joel Mengerink) acknowledged receipt.
- notice_records
- data/extracted/legal/prr-mandamus/school-district-notice-letters.notice.yaml
- data/extracted/legal/prr-mandamus/school-district-notice-resolution.notice.yaml
project_site
- township American Township, Allen County, Ohio
- zoning M-2
- conditional_use_permit 2025-02-04
- intended_use data center(s) + associated office/utility/support buildings (§13(C))
- exhibit_a Project Site map (p.13) — the campus footprint
beneficiary_assurance
- parent_is_fortune_100 yes
- quote "The Company's parent is a Fortune 100 Company that is publicly traded and headquartered in the United States." [§13(A)]
- company_us_based yes
- note The developer's own disclosed assurance about its parent — it does NOT name the parent in this document. Cross-refs the real-party-in-interest thread (entities + USASpending).
notable_clauses
- public_records_indemnity
- summary The Agreement is a public record (R.C. 149.43), but the Company INDEMNIFIES the County and pays its attorney fees if, in a public-records action, the County withheld a Company/Project record it otherwise could have disclosed.
- significance A private incentive for the County to withhold Company/Project records — directly relevant to the PRR/mandamus fight (see corpus-completeness-audit.md / the production index).
- rc_9_66_covenants §19 — no false statements for economic-development assistance; no delinquent taxes/moneys to the State.
- transfer §14 — assignable to Affiliates / financing parties / successors without County approval (the data-center legal/financing structure).
- contest_valuation §6 — the Company may still contest property valuation under R.C. 5715.13/5715.19.
Where it connects
legal/prr-mandamus/cra-agreement.cra.yaml · — · legal