New Albany

Deep dives · Franklin County, Licking County, Muskingum County, Union County, Miami County

New Albany

How a Plain Township farm village became the New Albany Company's planned suburb, then a business park for Intel, Meta, Google and Amazon, and who owns the land.

At a glance

Fact	Value
Type	City (village until after the 2010 census), charter government with mayor, council and city manager
Counties	Franklin and Licking
Platted	May 1837; incorporated as a village in 1856
Population	513 (1970), 1,621 (1990), 3,711 (2000), 10,825 (2020), 11,803 (2025 estimate)
Median household income	$238,250 (Ohio $71,389), 2020-24 ACS
Median home value	$772,100 (Ohio $214,800), 2020-24 ACS
Area	13,369.9 parcel acres across both counties (2025 rolls)
Master developer	The New Albany Company, founded 1987, beneficially owned by Les and Abigail Wexner
Largest employers and owners	Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, Abercrombie & Fitch, Bath & Body Works suppliers, AEP
Data centers	About 40 facilities built since 2010, 28 more announced or under construction (city figures)
Intel Ohio One	835.15 acres, announced January 21, 2022; first factory now projected for 2030-31
City income tax	2%; collections rose from $39.2 million (2019) to $70.6 million (2024)
Water and sewer	Purchased from the City of Columbus under contract
School districts	New Albany-Plain Local, Johnstown-Monroe Local, Licking Heights Local

A farm village in Plain Township

New Albany was platted in May 1837 by a member of the Landon family (the 1880 county history says Daniel, the township and the historical society say Noble) and William Yantis. Its post office opened in 1838 under the name Hope, and the village incorporated in 1856 with about 50 residents. Telephone and gas lines arrived in 1901, Plain Township's eleven one-room schools were consolidated into one central school in New Albany in 1925, and a volunteer fire department followed in 1943.

The village grew slowly. Its own 2005 plan blamed poor soils and shallow bedrock that made the land less desirable for farming. Census counts put the village at 513 residents in 1970, with 168 housing units in 1980. Before 1987 it had about 450 residents and a police chief who was the only full-time officer. Earl Musgrave won the 1985 mayoral race with 48 votes and was paid $1,800 a year.

Les Wexner, Jack Kessler and the New Albany Company

Les Wexner opened The Limited in 1963 and built it into the company later called L Brands, owner of Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works. In the mid-1980s he and Columbus developer John W. (Jack) Kessler began buying land and homes around New Albany through shadow or shell companies. Kessler said land prices rose from 1986 to 1989 as it became clear who was buying. In 1987 Kessler announced that the two had been buying under the name of the New Albany Company, which states it was founded that year. Wexner bought more than 340 acres for his estate on December 29, 1989, and in 1990 a village official said the company owned 80 to 85 percent of the village. By 1994 Kessler said about 5,000 acres had been acquired.

Wexner said in 1994 that he wanted to live in New Albany first, and decided "someone is going to develop this and I hope they don't trash it." The planning team included Gerald McCue, Laurie Olin, Jaquelin Robertson and architect Graham Wyatt. Cooper Robertson drew the master plan for the central area and designed the 49,000-square-foot red-brick New Albany Country Club clubhouse, completed in 1993. The company describes the town's style as Georgian, with white horse fencing and wooden street signs.

L Brands' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission describe The New Albany Company as "a business beneficially owned by Mr. and Mrs. Wexner." Kessler has chaired it since 1988. Today the Franklin County Auditor lists 16 parcels owned by Leslie H. Wexner, 336.9 acres with a 2025 market value of $62.8 million; the residence parcel at 4155 Kitzmiller Road is 96.14 acres appraised at $49.4 million. In 2002 Wexner, Kessler and John F. Wolfe founded the Columbus Partnership, the region's CEO group, which lists Wexner as co-founder and chairman emeritus.

Building the planned town

The public side of the town was financed through a taxing district the developer created. In July 1992 the New Albany Company petitioned Franklin County to form a New Community District under Ohio Revised Code chapter 349. The resulting New Albany Community Authority has seven trustees, three of them appointed by the developer, and its fiscal officer is also the developer's fiscal officer. Its 1995 bonds, $38.1 million backed by a charge on property in the district, paid for the $28 million high and middle school completed in 1996. A 2001 refinancing of $52.9 million included $4 million in notes issued to The New Albany Company. The school campus sits largely on land donated by the company and the Wexner family.

A second district, the New Albany East Community Authority, also contracts with the company for accounting and shares its fiscal officer. It levies up to 9.75 mills, grew from 389.47 acres at the end of 2017 to 4,875 acres at the end of 2023, and recognized $13.6 million in charges in 2023.

Water shaped the map. In 1988 the Ohio EPA found the village's water and sewage facilities in violation, and New Albany contracted with Columbus for service. Those contracts barred the village from pursuing a merger with Plain Township, and set water and sewer rates at ten times the contract rate if a merger happened. On November 8, 1994, township voters supported a merger but village voters rejected it 747 to 367. A federal appeals court later dismissed residents' challenge to the rate clause for lack of standing. In 1997 a county judge denied Plain Township's petition for its own water district, noting that the price of Columbus water was annexation. The Rocky Fork-Blacklick Accord of 1997 then set joint planning rules for the area between Columbus and New Albany.

The village adopted its first charter in 1992 and became a city after the 2010 census. Abercrombie & Fitch completed its New Albany headquarters and distribution center in 2001, and its 2005 income-tax payments were more than half the village total. AEP moved its transmission headquarters to land then owned by the company, and Bob Evans announced its headquarters move in 2011. The village's 2006 economic plan named data centers as "one interesting opportunity."

The population rose from 3,711 in 2000 to 7,724 in 2010 and 10,825 in 2020. Median household income was $102,180 in 1999 and $238,250 in the 2020-24 survey.

Intel and the business park in Licking County

The New Albany International Business Park grew east into Licking County. The village annexed about 800 acres from Jersey Township in 2002. On December 27, 2021, City Manager Joseph Stefanov presented a Type I annexation agreement to the Jersey Township trustees, who approved it 3-0; the township gets 50 percent of township property tax lost to abatements rather than the usual loss of all of it. Trustee Jeff Fry said, "You either work with them or they run over you."

Intel was announced 25 days later, on January 21, 2022: more than $20 billion for two chip factories, 3,000 jobs averaging $135,000 a year and 7,000 construction jobs. Intel said it had considered 38 sites. The company land was routed through intermediaries: on July 1, 2022 New Albany Company affiliate MCVGCM Holdings sold about 750 acres to Growth Site LLC for $110,793,757, and Growth Site deeded the land to Intel on July 18. A second tranche followed the same route through Growth Site II LLC in 2023. Who formed the Growth Site companies is not shown in public records. New Albany council annexed and rezoned 1,689 acres for the site on May 3, 2022, and on June 21, 2022 voted 5-0 for a 30-year, 100 percent property-tax abatement on Intel's buildings, with income tax shared with Johnstown-Monroe schools and Jersey Township in place of the property tax.

The state's capital budget, House Bill 687, carried $600 million for the Ohio Onshoring Incentive grant, $300 million for a water reclamation plant, $95 million for local roads, $101.2 million for local water and sewer and $110 million for state roads, $1.206 billion in all, of which $401.2 million was federal pandemic money. The grant agreement requires $20 billion invested, 3,000 jobs and $405 million in annual payroll by December 31, 2028, and lets the state waive repayment for market conditions, including whether Intel received its expected federal CHIPS money. The Tax Credit Authority approved a 30-year job creation tax credit in 2022, and JobsOhio has given Intel more than $27 million.

Intel's schedule has moved several times. In February 2025 it set completion of the first module for 2030 with operations in 2030-31. In July 2025 it said it was "further slowing construction in Ohio." In August 2025 the federal government took a 9.9 percent stake in Intel in place of unpaid CHIPS grants, and the amended agreement removed the project milestones. Intel's 2025 filings said that if it paused its 14A process it would likely discontinue the Ohio factories; that sentence does not appear in its 2026 quarterly filings. Intel reported 162 Ohio One employees at the end of 2025 and more than $5 billion invested. The Licking County Auditor values its 835.15 acres at $139.5 million, $14.6 million of it improvements.

Data centers, power and water

Data centers came first. The city says they have operated in the business park since 2010 and that about 15 IT companies have built 40 facilities there, with 28 more announced or under construction. Amazon's Vadata bought its first site from MBJ Holdings in 2015, Facebook (now Meta) bought land as Sidecat LLC in 2017 for a $750 million project, and Google bought its campus as Montauk Innovations LLC in December 2018. Microsoft, QTS, Vantage, EdgeConneX, CyrusOne, STACK, Edged and Karis Critical followed, and Cologix plans an 800-megawatt campus on land in Johnstown bought from a New Albany Company affiliate. In Licking County, eleven named data-center operators hold 92 parcels of about 4,743 acres, with $1.46 billion of building value abated.

Meta's Prometheus cluster, which Mark Zuckerberg said would come online in 2026, is in New Albany. Williams is building behind-the-meter gas plants for Meta's Sidecat: Socrates South, 200 megawatts, entered service in late July 2026, and Socrates North was certified by the Ohio Power Siting Board on September 18, 2025. Williams put its investment in the two at about $1.6 billion. A third plant, Socrates the Younger, has been proposed. In December 2025 regulators approved a three-year arrangement letting Meta draw power through the Green Chapel substation that AEP Ohio built for Intel.

AEP Ohio has 17,861 megawatts of data-center load under contract through 2035, against an all-customer peak of about 8,000 to 10,500 megawatts. On July 9, 2025 the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio adopted, 5-0, a data-center tariff settlement signed by AEP, commission staff and the Ohio Consumers' Counsel, over a competing settlement signed by Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta; it requires large data centers to pay for at least 85 percent of their contracted demand. AEP Ohio's residential capacity charge for standard-offer customers rose from $3.20 per megawatt-hour to $22.98 in June 2025 and $26.59 in June 2026; AEP put the June 2026 change for a typical 1,000-kilowatt-hour bill at $1.81 a month.

New Albany buys water from Columbus and says data centers may need 3 to 4 million gallons a day only when refreshing their systems several times a year. Columbus-area data centers used about 1.2 billion gallons of Columbus water in a 12-month period, roughly 3 percent of what the city produces. Intel said in 2022 its site could initially use about 5 million gallons a day. In fall 2025 test wells were drilled for the City of New Albany in Granville Township on 106.83 acres that MBJ Holdings had bought in 2023 from a Granville Township trustee and his wife for $2,670,850; preliminary results indicated about 4 million gallons a day. The trustee said he was told the land was for wetlands mitigation and would not have sold had he known about water wells.

Land and money

Licking County records show 68 sales of $1 million or more by New Albany Company affiliates between December 2010 and September 2026, totaling $1,130,936,589. The largest buyers were Meta ($339.0 million), Amazon ($196.3 million), Intel through the Growth Site companies ($123.1 million), VanTrust's COI entities ($104.5 million) and Microsoft ($61.8 million).

Since 2022 the company paid a median of about $85,000 an acre for farm and vacant land (18 purchases of 5 acres or more, no houses), while its land sales to tech companies, Intel and data centers went for a median of about $300,000 an acre (16 sales). These are different parcels, some outside the business park, and a price gap is not profit: it leaves out holding costs, taxes, and public roads, water and sewer. The purchases behind the main Intel site are not in the public records.

Two chains can be traced deed by deed. In 2022 MBJ Holdings bought two farms totaling 262.7 acres for $13.7 million, or $52,181 an acre. After transfers at no recorded price to The Mink Street Land Company and then to BC Mink Street LLC, whose owner is not on record, 180.57 acres of that land were sold to Meta's Sidecat on December 29, 2025 for $72,184,400, or $399,758 an acre. In the second, company affiliates paid $4,750,571 in 2022 for 83.09 acres, including one house, and sold them to Growth Site II LLC for $12,267,035 on January 31, 2023; Intel took title 16 days later.

Resales by outside buyers also moved prices. DBT-Data bought a parcel from MBJ for $20.75 million in 2022 and sold 89.8 acres to C1 New Albany LLC for $50.25 million in 2024. A VanTrust entity bought 170.3 acres from MBJ for $36.8 million on November 4, 2024 and sold them to EdgeConneX for $62.2 million in March 2025.

By 2026 county records, the four hyperscalers own 20.2 percent of the parcel acreage inside the City of New Albany, the New Albany Company family 11.9 percent, other data-center firms 6.7 percent and Intel 6.2 percent. In the Licking County part of the city, private individuals own 0.5 percent. Meta's Sidecat LLC holds 1,706.7 acres appraised at $921.4 million, of which $685.3 million is abated. Several affiliates registered in Ohio since 2023, including MBJ Holdings II, The Mink Street Land Company and the Frazeysburg Land Company, name the same contact for service of process, at the company's address. The company is now marketing land in Johnstown, Marysville and Piqua, and its Frazeysburg Land Company controls 664 acres in Muskingum County.

The city's 2 percent income tax supplies about 80 percent of its general fund, and collections rose from $39.2 million in 2019 to $70.6 million in 2024. Under a 2022 agreement Columbus receives 26 percent of net income tax from new commercial buildings in the Licking County expansion area for 40 years, plus $3,610 per developed acre. Schools are compensated by agreement rather than property tax: Licking Heights Local's audits show abatements, overwhelmingly New Albany's, cut its property taxes by $26.63 million in fiscal 2025, while compensation that year was $2.51 million. The state's data-center sales-tax exemption cost $554.9 million in 2024 and about $1.57 billion in 2025; Governor Mike DeWine vetoed the legislature's 2025 repeal and paused new awards on May 27, 2026.

Officials and influence

Sloan Spalding has been mayor since winning election in 2015; his city biography lists his day job as assistant auditor for Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber. Joseph Stefanov has been city manager since January 3, 2000 and has told council he will retire on December 31, 2026. In the 2025-26 council minutes, every economic-development abatement passed without a "no" vote. In December 2025 a resident asked council for a public report on data-center tax breaks, water and electricity; Spalding replied that deals are voted in open council and reviewed by county tax incentive review councils. A state public-records change effective in March 2026 made information submitted for economic-development assistance confidential.

Alex Fischer, former chief executive of the Columbus Partnership, registered on November 15, 2024 as a lobbyist for The New Albany Company, his only client, and his reports show lobbying on annexation, tax exemptions and the 2026 data-center bills. Josh Rubin's lobbying filings show him registered to lobby for Intel before and during his chairmanship of JobsOhio, which began in September 2023. The Ohio Ethics Commission's director said Rubin's 2026 lobbying of the governor on Intel "would also appear to contradict" his pledge to stop work before JobsOhio; the governor's office said lobbying the governor is not business before JobsOhio and denied a conflict, and Rubin did not respond to the Ohio Capital Journal.

Federal records show Abigail Wexner gave about $5.25 million and Les Wexner about $4.13 million in itemized contributions from 1980 to 2026. Les Wexner said in 2018 that he had left the Republican Party, and gave the National Republican Senatorial Committee $250,000 on October 28, 2025. By September 2026, 16 Ohio politicians had donated more than $220,000 tied to Wexner contributions to charity; Governor DeWine, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther and Senator Bernie Moreno did not.

Jeffrey Epstein and other controversies

Wexner says he met Jeffrey Epstein in the mid-1980s. In July 1991 he signed a power of attorney letting Epstein hire people, sign checks and buy and sell property on his behalf; Wexner says he revoked it in September 2007. Franklin County Auditor records show Epstein bought 5025 Dublin-Granville Road, a 30.37-acre estate with a house built in 1990, for $3.5 million in 1992, from JW & CPK & Co., a Kessler and Wexner company, and sold it on May 13, 1998 for $8 million to HHD & B LLC, which still owns it and shares the New Albany Company's mailing address. The Wexners' spokesman said the house was not on Wexner land and was nearly half a mile from the Wexner home. Ohio business filings from 1998, as reported by WKBN and ABC6, list Epstein as president or co-president of The New Albany Company; Wexner told congressional investigators the co-president role was purely financial.

Wexner said in 2019 that Epstein "misappropriated vast sums of money from me and my family," and that he "was NEVER aware of the illegal activity charged in the indictment." An August 15, 2019 FBI email released in 2026 lists "Leslie Wexner" under "Secondary co-conspirators" with the note "There is limited evidence regarding his involvement." Wexner's legal representative says a federal prosecutor told his counsel in 2019 that he was "neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect." Wexner has never been charged with a crime in connection with Epstein. The House Oversight Committee deposed him at his New Albany home on February 18, 2026; in a statement he called himself "naïve, foolish, and gullible" to have trusted Epstein. Artist Maria Farmer alleged in a 2019 affidavit that she was assaulted by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell on the Wexner property in 1996; the Wexners' spokesman said they never knew or met her. Of three 2026 civil suits against Wexner and the Wexner Foundation, one was dismissed without prejudice, one was sent back to state court and one was moved to federal court; his spokesperson said the claims will be vigorously defended.

Abercrombie & Fitch, headquartered at 6301 Fitch Path, faces a separate case: former chief executive Mike Jeffries was indicted in October 2024 on sex-trafficking and interstate prostitution charges and has pleaded not guilty. A judge found him competent in August 2026, and jury selection was set for January 4, 2027.

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Questions

Who founded modern New Albany, Ohio?

Modern New Albany was built by The New Albany Company, which retail founder Les Wexner and developer John W. Kessler began assembling in the mid-1980s, buying farmland through shell companies before announcing their plans in 1987. Wexner bought more than 340 acres for his own estate on December 29, 1989. By 1994 the company had acquired about 5,000 acres. The original village was platted in May 1837 by the Landon family and William Yantis.

Why is Intel building in New Albany?

Intel chose a site annexed into New Albany from Jersey Township in Licking County after considering 38 locations, and Ohio announced the project on January 21, 2022: more than $20 billion for two chip factories and 3,000 jobs. The state backed it with a $600 million grant, about $606 million in road, water and sewer money and a 30-year tax credit. Intel now projects the first factory operating in 2030-31.

What companies have data centers in New Albany, Ohio?

Meta (through Sidecat LLC), Google (Montauk Innovations LLC), Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, QTS, Vantage, EdgeConneX, CyrusOne, STACK, Edged and Karis Critical all own or operate data-center land in or beside New Albany's business park. Cologix is building nearby in Johnstown. The city says about 15 IT companies have built 40 facilities there since 2010, with 28 more announced or under construction.

Who owns the land in New Albany, Ohio?

By 2026 county auditor records, the four hyperscalers (Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft) own about 20.2% of the parcel acreage inside the City of New Albany, The New Albany Company and its affiliates 11.9%, other data-center companies 6.7% and Intel 6.2%. Meta's Sidecat LLC is the single most valuable owner in the area: 1,706.7 acres appraised at $921.4 million.

Who owns The New Albany Company?

L Brands' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission describe The New Albany Company as a business beneficially owned by Les and Abigail Wexner. The company says it was founded in 1987. John W. Kessler has been its chairman since 1988. Its land is held through affiliates including MBJ Holdings LLC, which Ohio's state auditor describes as a wholly owned subsidiary, and MCVGCM Holdings LLC, which sold the Intel site.

How rich is New Albany, Ohio?

The Census Bureau's 2020-2024 American Community Survey puts New Albany's median household income at $238,250, against $71,389 for Ohio, and its median home value at $772,100, against $214,800 statewide. About 1.4% of residents were below the poverty line. The city had 10,825 residents in the 2020 census and an estimated 11,803 on July 1, 2025.

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