Amazon-linked data centers beat job targets in Hilliard tax review

By Grace Kim

Two Amazon-linked data-center projects in Hilliard, Ohio, accounted for $8.37 million in property-tax abatements in tax year 2025. Both reported new jobs—313 and 232—far above their targets, according to Hilliard’s 2026 compliance review.

The numbers put the incentive agreements far above their benchmarks, but they are project compliance figures—not independently verified counts of permanent operating positions.

What did each Amazon-linked project report?

• Amazon Data Services: 313 new jobs against a target of 35, and $21.67 million in new annual payroll against a $2.45 million target. Its filing lists $3.4 million in property taxes forgone and covers two campuses on Scioto Darby Road and Cosgray Road.
• Vadata: 232 new jobs against a target of 25, and $25.33 million in new annual payroll against a $2 million target. Its filing lists $4.9 million in property taxes forgone. The data-center tenant is Amazon Web Services.

Amazon Data Services had until Dec. 31, 2026, to meet its job and payroll targets; its tax-year 2025 figures already exceeded both about a year early. Vadata’s deadline was Dec. 30, 2021.

Together, the filings list $47 million in new annual payroll. They cover separate, nonoverlapping parcels and come from two compliance reports rather than a labor-force survey; Hilliard’s review presents the figures without noting a revision.

The short version: both deals were listed as “compliant” on the reported numbers, on very different timelines.

What do the job figures mean for workers?

For an individual job seeker, the figures indicate facility-level expansion, not a current list of openings. The employment numbers come from the compliance reports and have not been independently verified as permanent operating positions. Adding them yields 545 reported jobs, but it would not establish 545 distinct workers.

The filings do not break down occupations, pay, benefits, hours, filled versus open roles, or residency. They also provide no citywide or national benchmark; two projects in one Ohio municipality cannot establish a broader hiring trend. Because data centers house computer servers that support computing services, the evidence concerns two large infrastructure projects rather than the sector as a whole.

That leaves a worker’s market position uncertain. A candidate cannot use 545 alone to estimate available roles, expected pay or the permanence of a job. The reports also provide no hiring schedule.

In plain terms: the projects show reported job growth, not 545 openings a candidate can apply for today.

What do the property-tax numbers show?

The $8.37 million comprises $3.4 million for Amazon Data Services and $4.9 million for Vadata. Abatements reduce what the companies owe in property taxes; they do not provide direct cash payments. The reports also list $820,655 in annual property taxes paid.

Those entries do not account for the facilities’ entire public impact. A full comparison would need other tax receipts, payments to schools or other public bodies, additional incentives, and public infrastructure costs. As a result, the reports cannot establish the projects’ net taxpayer cost, whether their broader public benefits exceeded their costs, or whether the incentives caused the employment and development.

That limitation matters in Cleveland’s current regulatory debate. Residents have asked about electricity and water demand, who will pay for infrastructure and what communities will receive in return. Hilliard’s experience offers an example from another municipality, but it cannot tell Cleveland what it would collect, spend or require from a future project.

For taxpayers, $8.37 million measures a tax liability reduced, not the full price or return on the developments.

What did the city council decide, and what comes next?

Hilliard City Council accepted the review recommendations on Sept. 28 through a resolution. Both data-center reports identified the projects as “compliant” and recommended continuing their abatements. That supports continued abatements based on reported performance; it does not establish that Hilliard secured the best possible terms or that the incentives produced the jobs.

The next dated milestone is Dec. 31, 2026, when Amazon Data Services must meet its job and payroll targets. Its 2025 filing already puts it above both; Vadata’s deadline passed on Dec. 30, 2021.

For workers and taxpayers, the open questions are whether the reported positions hold up as distinct permanent jobs and whether a fuller accounting of public costs and benefits can be made. The current files answer neither question.

The Dec. 31, 2026 deadline supplies the next checkpoint, but the current record still cannot distinguish reported job growth from verified opportunity or calculate the projects’ full public return.