The farm's second harvest: the data-center campus

2024–2026

In the 2020s the largest ground in the township changed hands for the second time in its recorded life: Microsoft bought some 929 acres of the former St. Joe Farm at Bittersweet and Cleveland roads — the same Holy Cross farm ground this spine's middle entries carry — for a data-center campus. The course, from the press of record: in May 2024 the St. Joseph County Council approved the rezoning petition; in June 2024 Microsoft purchased the site for $77.5 million (one secondary summary dates the acquisition to May; the Tribune's sequence — rezoning in May, purchase in June — is the one printed); an additional forty acres on Cleveland Road were rezoned in May 2025. The plan of record is six data-center buildings on the main campus north of Cleveland Road, with 250 to 300 acres set aside as a conservation easement and green zone, power supplied by AEP, and an estimated 300 permanent jobs on the county officials' figure; Microsoft states it will seek no tax abatements or exemptions. The record carries two addresses for the campus and the Story of Granger section does not merge them: the state environmental permit — an IDEM federally enforceable state operating permit, FESOP No. F 141-50527-00655, in public comment from October 26 to November 25, 2026 — gives 12501 Cleveland Road, Granger; the purchase was also reported at 52682 Currant Road. Trade accounts that spoke of the site as being "in Mishawaka" are corrected by the county record: the ground is Granger's. Mishawaka's share is the servicing — the city will supply water and sewer under its agreement with the county, with Microsoft paying for the extensions and upgrades, spoken of at up to $60 million of utility work at the company's cost — and it is carried in Mishawaka's build at boundary size, as here the campus is carried at seat size. The money course of 2026: a $12.6 million initial agreement for engineering and design, then a second memorandum of understanding of $65 million, voted October 6, 2026 by the county Redevelopment Commission and Board of Commissioners and funded entirely by Microsoft, for water, sewer, and road work on Veterans Parkway and on Cleveland, Douglas, and Bittersweet roads — a vote at which residents and candidates for office urged reconsideration on the record. On September 22, 2026 the county council voted 6–3 for a preliminary ban on any further hyperscale data centers in the county. And on November 2, 2026, the county Drainage Board approved temporary construction dewatering for the campus — up to 200,000 gallons an hour discharged into Willow Creek and Juday Creek, the wells to work from mid-December 2026 into early April 2027 — the marsh ground of Howard's description, met again at industrial scale. The project, on the Tribune's reporting, plans to go vertical in Granger in 2027.

Sources:

1. South Bend Tribune, October–November 2026 (the rezoning of May 2024 and purchase of June 2024 at $77.5 million; the May 2025 rezoning; the six buildings and conservation acreage; the October 6, 2026 memorandum; the September 22, 2026 council vote; the November 2, 2026 Drainage Board approval; the Mishawaka water and sewer agreement).
2. Indiana Department of Environmental Management, FESOP No. F 141-50527-00655 (the permit address, 12501 Cleveland Road, Granger; comment period October 26–November 25, 2026).
3. The Mishawaka build's banked current-and-today file (the servicing share, boundary-printed).