Brian Dembinski - Amherst Councilman

07/31/2026

Norfolk Southern is closing Crosse Rd starting Monday 8/3/2026 at 8:00am through 8/15/2026 for repairs on all three tracks at this location.

07/30/2026

DATA CENTER VARIANCE DENIED

Here is a link to the letter if anybody wants to read it:https://h8s.us/amherst-data-center-community-document.pdf

If I get more information I'll upate this post but the headline is what everybody wants to know.

07/29/2026

Heading into the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) meeting tonight regarding the data center, I wanted to touch on a few things.

1) If you can't make the meeting you can watch it live, or catch up on previous meetings, on the city's website: https://amherstohio.org/city-council/live-stream-and-archived-videos/

2) An important piece I really want to emphasize: After all agenda items have been heard the ZBA will go into a deliberative session to discuss and vote on them. This part of the meeting is closed to the public. Because this is their standard process, we will not know the outcome of the variance request on Wednesday night. Afterward, the developer will be notified if the variance was granted within 14 days of the meeting.

Hope to see you all there tonight.

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07/25/2026

Meeting agendas for Monday, July 27, 2026, starting at 6:50pm.

FYI this will be the last scheduled city council meeting until Tuesday September 8th.

07/24/2026

The updated Amherst DORA (Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area) starts today, Friday July 24, 2026, at 1pm. Find out the details on the city's website at https://amherstohio.org/dora

07/22/2026

A small portion of West Martin Avenue, in between Candy Lane and North Lake Street will be closed until approximately 1pm today for street paving. A detour is available via Candy Lane.

07/21/2026

There've been a lot of posts everywhere about the proposed data center here in Amherst, so I thought it might be easier to keep everything in a dedicated post. Feel free to ask your questions, post your concerns, whatever makes you happy, and I'll try to answer what I know.

A few things I want to point out first:
- I am not for or against the proposal at this point. I simply need more information to make an informed decision, if it even comes to council in the future.
- this hasn't gone through any approval process yet. The Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on July 29th at 6:30pm is the first vote of multiple, so nothing has been finalized yet.
- the proposal isn't one of the giant data centers we hear about on the news
- they want to reuse the existing Nordson buildings
- they would not use a lot of water. The cooling system would be a closed loop water cooling system that gets refilled once every 10 years.
- no information on electrical usage. Nordson was supplied by First Energy, not Amherst, and it's unknown which supplier the data center would use or what their usage would be
- they plan to take pre and post construction noise level studies, including adding sound mitigation systems if needed

Edits with updated information:
- the variance for the data center is for the addresses 100, 200 and 300 Nordson Drive, and the buildings they're tearing down are 444 Gordon and 555 Jackson. While the timing of tearing down some buildings right when the data center is proposing to use other buildings is INCREDIBLY bad the two things are unrelated.
- I was reading some news articles and a few mentioned the data center might be 45MW. The developer wouldn't answer my question when I asked him that directly.
- I was reading the real estate documents for the Nordson properties and found an interesting tidbit. Even if sold the properties at 100 and 200 Nordson Drive are to be leased back by Nordson through 2028.

The Amherst Board of Zoning Appeals will decide next week whether a proposed data center at the former Nordson property can move forward to the next stage of the city's review process.

07/20/2026

Meeting agenda for Monday, July 20, 2026, starting at 7pm.

07/16/2026

The Lorain County Commissioners will hold two Public Hearings on Friday, July 17, 2026.

The first at 1:00pm will be: First sales tax hearing on a 1/4% for 15 years, Criminal Justice & Administrative Services for Lorain County Jail Facility & Lorain County Detention Facility.

The second at 1:30pm will be: First sales tax hearing on a 1/4% for 15 years Construction, Equipping or Repair for Lorain County Jail Facility & Lorain County Detention Facility. Both will be held in conference room B on the 4th floor of the Lorain County Administration Building.

07/06/2026