Is Buckeye Lake Still a Good Place to Buy? What the August Flood and the 696-Megawatt Data Center Mean for Home Values
Buckeye Lake got ordered out of its houses on a Friday in August. Three weeks later "buckeye lake ohio flooding" is the fastest-growing thing people are typing about the lake, and 1,600 people a month are still typing "buckeye lake ohio homes for sale." Meanwhile a mile east of the water, Vantage Data Centers wants to put 696 megawatts of servers on 352 acres of farmland with its own 1,350-megawatt gas plant next door, and the state has until November 26 to say yes or no to the plant. I have never seen a lake market carry two stories that big at the same time. So I pulled every closing around the lake since 2024 to see what the houses are actually doing while everyone argues.
What happened at the lake in August?
The National Weather Service in Wilmington logged a cluster of slow-moving thunderstorms that set up over west-central Ohio the afternoon of August 19 and did not leave. The heaviest parts of Fairfield and Licking counties got 4 to 7 inches. Pataskala measured 5.36. A gauge southwest of New Albany measured 6.79. The South Fork of the Licking River, which runs past the lake and under Interstate 70, went out of its banks.
On August 21 the village of Buckeye Lake ordered a mandatory evacuation of every property west of the State Route 79 and State Route 260 intersection. I-70 was closed at Route 79. The Buckeye Lake Estates mobile home park and the KOA campground were partly submerged. The shelter was Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The mayor, Linda Goodman, told WOSU the water crested Friday morning and that her first responders were, in her words, very, very, very, very busy.
That is the west end. If you own or are looking on the east side of the lake, in Millersport or toward Thornville, your street did not get that order. The lake is one body of water and about six different markets, and the flood sorted them by elevation in one night.
What is Vantage building a mile away?
This one has two parts, and the second part is the one people are actually mad about.
The first part is the data center. Vantage Data Centers, out of Denver, calls it OH2, the Millersport campus, at the corner of Lancaster Newark Road and Blacklick Road. Their own numbers: 352 acres, seven buildings, up to four of them data centers, 2.5 million square feet, 696 megawatts of IT capacity, more than $2.1 billion, more than 2,500 construction jobs, 50-plus permanent jobs when it is running. Signal Ohio reported the total site as 500 acres of former farmland.
The second part is the power. Vantage says the campus will be supplied by an adjacent natural gas facility. Signal Ohio, in a piece on August 20, put the specifics on it: a Boston company called Advanced Power wants to build a 1,350-megawatt plant there, 40 gas turbines, 132 diesel generators and an industrial battery system, with estimated emissions of 1,600 tons of air pollutants and 6.6 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. The Ohio Power Siting Board has to approve it, and its deadline is November 26, 2026. The gas plant is another 6,600 construction jobs over three years and about 20 permanent ones. The incentive package gives Vantage a 50 percent sales tax exemption through 2035 that Signal valued at $83 million at least.
A resident named Lorrie Hoover put the opposition in one sentence, that there is no local necessity to have a private 1,350-megawatt fossil fuel generating station. Whether you agree with her or not, the campus does not run without the plant, and the plant does not exist until the state signs.
What do homes around the lake actually sell for?
Every resale closing in the Columbus REALTORS MLS, 2024 through September 3, 2026, sorted by mailing city, new construction excluded. Speed is the true clock, MLS entry to contract.
| Town (resale) | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 through Sept 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buckeye Lake | 15 sold, $210,000 | 15 sold, $175,000 | 26 sold, $256,000, $232/sf, 27 days, 8% over ask |
| Millersport | 13 sold, $550,000 | 26 sold, $538,000 | 29 sold, $410,000, $267/sf, 57 days, 14% over ask |
| Thornville | 42 sold, $317,500 | 64 sold, $359,500 | 73 sold, $384,900, $240/sf, 28 days, 18% over ask |
| Hebron | 26 sold, $297,000 | 42 sold, $387,200 | 57 sold, $380,000, $206/sf, 22 days, 30% over ask |
On the market right now: 21 homes in Buckeye Lake at a median asking price of $349,999, 24 in Millersport at $652,450, 50 in Thornville at $471,950, 39 in Hebron at $412,200.
Three things jump out of that table and none of them are the flood.
Buckeye Lake village is a tiny sample that swings hard. Fifteen sales a year, a median that dropped to $175,000 in 2025 because a quarter of the sales were under $70,000, then $256,000 this year with a quarter of them over $510,000. That is not a trend. That is a village where a lakefront house and a fishing cabin share a zip code, and which ones happened to close decides the median.
Millersport is where the data center is, and Millersport's median fell from $538,000 to $410,000 this year while its days to contract doubled to 57. Before anyone blames Vantage, look at the middle half: $320,000 to $550,000, against $196,000 to $715,000 last year. The top of the market did not sell this year. Whether that is sellers waiting on the plant decision or just fewer $700,000 houses changing hands, the record cannot say. Twenty-four listings at a $652,450 median ask says the sellers have not lowered their number.
Hebron, up Route 79 on the I-70 side, is the healthy one. Thirty percent of resales closed above the original asking price, in 22 days.
Did the flood change anything yet?
Not in a closing. Five homes in Buckeye Lake and Millersport closed between August 20 and September 3, at $284,999, $320,000, $510,000, $575,000 and $625,000. Every one of them went under contract before the rain. A closing prices the day the contract was signed, not the day the truck showed up, so those five tell you what buyers thought in July.
The sales that will tell you what the flood did are the ones that go under contract in September and October, and specifically the ones west of Route 79. If you own out there, three things are now true that were not true in July. Your buyer's lender will want flood insurance if the parcel is in a mapped zone, and the mapped zones just got a real-world test. Your buyer's inspector will be looking for a water line in the crawlspace. And your disclosure form has a new answer on it. None of that is fatal. All of it is priced, and the seller who gets ahead of it with a dry-basement invoice and a current elevation certificate is the one who does not get beaten up at the remedy table.
What should you do if you are buying or selling here?
If you are buying on the west end, ask three questions before you fall for the dock. Was this parcel inside the August 21 evacuation area? Is it in a FEMA flood zone, and what does the elevation certificate say? And where did the water actually get to, which the neighbors know better than any map. Then price it. A house that stayed dry in a 4-to-7-inch event is worth more than it was in July, and you can say that out loud in your offer.
If you are buying on the Millersport side, the date is November 26. If the siting board approves the plant, you are buying next to the largest private construction site in Fairfield County for the next three years and a gas plant after that. If it denies it, the campus has no power and the story changes. I would not write an offer over there without a contingency that runs past that date, or a price that assumes the plant.
If you are selling anywhere on the lake, do not wait for the answer. The market is not waiting. Twenty-one listings in the village, fifty in Thornville, and Hebron closing in three weeks says buyers are still coming out Route 79 every weekend. What they want from you is to have already answered the flood question and the plant question before they ask.
Send me the address and I will send back where the parcel sat on August 21, what the flood zone and elevation say, every closing within a mile since the water, and how far it is to Lancaster Newark and Blacklick. That is a one-page read. Start with a home value estimate if you are weighing a sale, or set up a home search if the lake is where you want to be, and I will run it myself. If you want to talk it through, book a call.
Related reading: what Dublin's data center rezoning meant for Ballantrae home values and the Licking County side of the Columbus market.
Adam Geuy, Realtor, Blacktree Realty. 937-239-2919.
Sources
- Flood: NWS Wilmington event summary, August 19-20, 2026 (rainfall totals, South Fork Licking River); WOSU, August 21, 2026 (evacuation area, I-70 closure, Buckeye Lake Estates and KOA, shelter, Mayor Goodman quotes).
- Vantage OH2 campus facts: Vantage Millersport campus site. Gas plant, Ohio Power Siting Board deadline, incentives, jobs, resident quote: Signal Ohio, August 20, 2026.
- All sale prices, counts, price per square foot, days to contract, over-ask shares and active listings: Columbus REALTORS MLS closed and active residential listings by mailing city, January 1, 2024 through September 3, 2026, computed by Adam Geuy from MLS exports. New construction excluded.
Common questions
What flooded at Buckeye Lake in August 2026?
Slow-moving storms on August 19 and 20 dropped 4 to 7 inches of rain on the heaviest-hit parts of Fairfield and Licking counties, per the National Weather Service in Wilmington. On August 21 the village of Buckeye Lake ordered a mandatory evacuation of every property west of the State Route 79 and State Route 260 intersection. Interstate 70 was closed at Route 79, and the Buckeye Lake Estates mobile home park and the KOA campground were partly under water. The mayor's office believed the water crested Friday morning.
What is the Vantage data center near Buckeye Lake?
Vantage Data Centers' OH2 campus at Lancaster Newark Road and Blacklick Road in Millersport, about a mile from the lake. Vantage describes it as 352 acres, seven buildings including up to four data centers, 2.5 million square feet, 696 megawatts of IT capacity, more than $2.1 billion invested, 2,500 construction jobs and 50-plus permanent positions. Power comes from an adjacent natural gas plant proposed by Advanced Power at 1,350 megawatts, which needs Ohio Power Siting Board approval. The board's deadline is November 26, 2026.
What do homes at Buckeye Lake sell for in 2026?
In the village of Buckeye Lake, 26 resale homes closed through September 3, 2026 at a median $256,000 and $232 a square foot, with a median 27 days from listing to contract. The middle half of sales ran $203,000 to $510,000. Millersport closed 29 at a median $410,000, Thornville 73 at $384,900, Hebron 57 at $380,000. Twenty-one homes were listed in Buckeye Lake at a median asking price of $349,999.
Did the flood lower Buckeye Lake home prices?
There is no evidence of it yet. Five homes in Buckeye Lake and Millersport closed between the flood and September 3, at $285,000, $320,000, $510,000, $575,000 and $625,000, and every one of them went under contract before the water came. The sales that price the flood in are the ones that go under contract this fall. Watch the west end of the village, which is the part that was ordered out.
Does a data center hurt home values near it?
Nobody can prove it either way here yet, because the campus is not built. What is knowable is that the state has not approved the gas plant, that the plant and the campus together would put more than 9,000 construction workers on the east side of Millersport for several years, and that the tax structure gives Vantage a sales tax exemption worth at least $83 million through 2035. If you are buying on the Millersport side of the lake, the November 26 decision is the date to know before you write.