Indianapolis Approves $240M in Tax Breaks for Sabey's $4.3B Campus — the Project Its Own Moratorium Had Exempted

On September 16, 2026, Indianapolis’s Metropolitan Development Commission approved $240 million in tax abatements for Sabey Data Centers’ proposed $4.3 billion campus in Decatur Township, at 6400 Kentucky Ave, over months of community opposition. The package passed in two votes: the real-estate abatement — a 60% reduction over 10 years — 6-1, and the equipment abatement — a 90% reduction over 15 years — 5-2. The county rezoned 130 acres for a two-building campus, with construction targeted for 2027. Sabey agreed to pay the city $29.8 million for infrastructure upgrades in Decatur Township. The abatements exempt an estimated $47 million in real-estate taxes and $36 million in equipment taxes. Residents objected that schools, fire departments, and other local services bear the cost of serving the campus without receiving the corresponding revenue.

The sequence is what makes this more than a routine abatement vote. Five weeks earlier the same county enacted a data-center moratorium through 2027 — the Indianapolis City-County Council 23-1 on August 10, the same Metropolitan Development Commission 6-0 on August 19 (2026-08-10–indianapolis-council-pauses-data-centers-23-1-through-2027-three-projects-exempt, 2026-08-19–indianapolis-marion-county-enacts-data-center-moratorium-through-2027). Sabey was one of three projects the moratorium explicitly exempted, alongside DC Blox and Metrobloks. Canon’s reading of that pause said the exemption was the substance: “a county that adopts a freeze after three approvals has locked in those three and bought time to price the fourth.” This vote is that reading confirmed on the record — the grandfathered project returned to the same body five weeks later and collected a nine-figure abatement while the freeze on everyone else held.

That is not hypocrisy; it is how a prospective instrument works, and the distinction matters. A moratorium governs applications not yet filed. It cannot reach a project already through the approval gate, and nothing in the August votes purported to. The structural lesson for other jurisdictions is about timing: the pause arrives after the approvals it would have mattered most against, so the relief it delivers is entirely to future applicants while the largest committed project proceeds on pre-pause terms. Canon’s own framing — “Indianapolis is not deciding whether to host data centers; it is deciding what to charge and require” — is answered here with a number: for Sabey, it charged $240 million less than list.

The cost-shift objection is the same one recurring across this lane. Abated property and equipment taxes are not collected by any taxing unit, so the Decatur Township fire department and the local school corporation absorb the service demand without the offsetting levy. Brazos County recorded a variant where an abatement transfer put half a campus back on the rolls (2026-08-18–brazos-county-approves-rellis-data-center-abatement-transfer-thisway-global); Guadalupe County residents sued over one (2026-07-22–guadalupe-county-tx-residents-sue-cloudburst-tax-abatement). The $29.8 million infrastructure payment is a one-time capital contribution against abatements running 10 and 15 years, and the two are not commensurable without the underlying schedule.

Sourcing note. The vote date, the $240M total, both abatement structures and both vote margins are carried by WFYI and IBJ, two tier-1 local outlets. The $47M/$36M tax-savings breakdown and the $29.8M infrastructure contribution are from Mirror Indy (tier 2) only. The moratorium-exemption link is established from canon’s own prior entries, which name Sabey as one of the three grandfathered projects.

Open: the MDC resolution and any PILOT agreement from the September 16 meeting packet, which would give the exact abatement schedule and the mechanism of the $29.8M contribution; each affected taxing unit’s projected revenue loss from the county assessor’s impact analysis; and the prior zoning classification of the 130 rezoned acres.