For months residents in Martindale Brightwood have been vocal in their opposition of a proposed data center in the neighborhood.
Local business owners and longtime residents shared their concerns Feb. 10 to the Martindale Brightwood Community Development Corp.
California-based developer Metrobloks wants to build a data center on a vacant lot near 25th Street and Sherman Drive. The site is near homes and is adjacent to Brightwood Plaza, which is home to the Martindale Brightwood CDC and one of the area’s only grocery stores.
Shonna Majors, the executive director of the Brightwood Community Center, said Metrobloks has not been transparent about the informal risks of the development. The proposed site is a brownfield — which means the land could be contaminated.
“This is not development, this is environmental racism in action,” Majors said.
Majors called on Mayor Joe Hogsett to pause data center approvals. She also requested comprehensive environmental testing, remediation, a community impact review and engagement with Martindale Brightwood residents before further decisions on the data center proposal are made.
Katherine Adamou runs Rita Ann’s Early Learning Academy, a day care center a few blocks away from the proposed site. She said the day care center has a garden where children learn to grow produce and a 4-H program.
Adamou worries about the potential pollution development on the site could bring.
“We don’t want this,” Adamou said. “We have been saying that we don’t want the contamination. It’s going to directly affect our food, it’s going to affect our water, it’s going to affect our health and we’re being pushed out.”
Longtime resident Delma Williams remembers the effect construction of Interstate 70 had on the neighborhood. Construction divided the community, pushed neighbors out and eventually led to disinvestment.
“Here we are 40, 50 years later and we have somebody that wants to come into our neighborhood,” Williams said.
But Williams is confident that Martindale Brightwood residents will be persistent in their opposition efforts.
“We have a voice,” Williams said. “My parents didn’t think they had a voice. Whatever the city said, they did. But now we’ve got people that know just as much as they do.”
Williams referred to the neighborhood’s code compliance and land use committee, led by Jacklyn McMillan Gunn.
Last month, Gunn requested a continuance for the data center proposal at the Metropolitan Development Commission hearing examiner meeting. Gunn hoped the additional time would provide City-County Councilors enough time to research data centers and submit a resolution on data center oversight and transparency.
The proposal will now be heard by the hearing examiner at 1 p.m. Feb. 12 at the City-County Building.
“We will be fighting until the very end and we hope that our message gets out,” Williams said. “But one thing is for sure, we are in it to fight, and they know it, and we’re going to give them everything we got.”
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Mirror Indy reporter Darian Benson covers east Indianapolis. Contact her at 317-397-7262 or darian.benson@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @HelloImDarian or on Bluesky @darianbenson.bsky.social.
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