The fiscal trade

Lima is the network’s proof that the four blanks above are not rhetorical. It is also the site where two of them have since been partly answered. Read this note against the panel below rather than instead of it.

What the record now shows

Allen County created Community Reinvestment Area No. 1 and approved a CRA agreement with Bistrozzi LLC by resolution 548-25^doc , effective 2025-07-10. The county produced that agreement on 2026-06-05. It abates 75 % of real property tax for 15 years per building, and it covers buildings only. Equipment is personal property and sits outside it.

The company’s own estimates are written into the agreement as estimates, not as caps. They are about $500 million of capital investment and about 50 permanent full-time jobs by the end of 2030, against 0 employees at signing. The agreement records that actual figures may differ significantly.

The school side is on the record too, though at one remove. Elida Local School District’s board authorized a payment in lieu of taxes by resolution 5-25-2 on 2025-05-20, at $250,000 a year; the board’s own resolution has not been produced, and what carries the terms here is the CRA agreement that recites them^doc . The county’s separate resolution 494-25^doc is the R.C. 3735.671 notice to that board and to Apollo Career Center, the joint vocational district in the same footprint.

Who actually paid for the roads

The corridor roadwork is the item most often described loosely, so state it exactly. Under the Roadwork Development Agreement^doc , Bistrozzi LLC pays a one-time contribution of $14.5 million. Allen County accepts dedication of the roads and maintains them afterward. The Port Authority of Allen County is the named grantee for two anticipated public grants: the State of Ohio Roadwork Development (629) grant, and an Ohio Department of Development Jobs and Commerce grant.

There is a clause worth reading twice. Under §5.5, if the certified total cost comes in below the company’s contribution plus the grant funds, the Authority refunds the difference to the company. Grant money received after itemization is refunded the same way. So public grant dollars can flow back to the private contributor. The real public-private split therefore turns on grant awards that this document does not contain.

What is still missing

The sales-tax side is not a county instrument at all. Ohio’s data-center exemption runs under R.C. 122.175 and is granted by the state. Whether this campus holds one is not in the record, so every sales-tax figure in the ledger annex is a conditional band, not a documented give.