Developers of a 72-megawatt data center campus at the former Alcatel-Lucent site in Naperville are now scaling back their plan following feedback from Naperville city staff and residents.
The initial proposal by Karis Critical Member was for a campus that would be developed in two phases and include two separate 211,000-square-foot data center buildings that would serve as mirror images of each other.
Now, Karis is seeking approval for only phase one of its plan: a singular 36-megawatt data center building on the 40-acre property. Similar to the original plan, the building will contain an office component. There will be 24 backup generators as part of the new proposal, with each generator acoustically treated in a self-contained unit.
The updated plan will be discussed at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting Wednesday following a September commission meeting on the proposal.
“The staff report from the city’s planning department at planning commission was supportive of phase one development, but I think they sort of wanted to see how everything worked with phase one before moving into phase two,” said Russ Whitaker, an attorney representing Karis.
Whitaker noted that the city has confirmed that the city’s power load would currently be able to handle phase one but not necessarily phase two.
Concerns from Naperville residents, particularly those in neighborhoods close to the proposed site, also influenced the decision to downsize the proposal. For months, residents have pushed back against the proposed development. An online petition opposed to the data center has garnered over 2100 signatures, citing concerns with regards to health, the environment and property values.
“When we sort of thought about all of those things, we were able to eliminate the phase two building, move forward with only the phase one development at this point in time,” Whitaker said.
With the development scaled back, that leaves “roughly 20 acres that will be fallow,” Whitaker said. It is possible there will be a development in that empty space in the future, but what that development would be is currently unknown.
“We don’t expect that it’s forever going to remain vacant, but we’ve pulled the data center concept off the table,” Whitaker said.
Data centers have popped up across Illinois in recent years as Gov. JB Pritzker has pushed the state to become a major hub for such facilities with programs like the Illinois Data Center Investment Program. At the same time, environmental experts have raised concerns about the impact the surge in data centers could have on the Great Lakes region.
Other communities within Illinois have run into issues with the data centers. Last month, Aurora put a temporary pause on the approval of data centers and warehouse proposals following an increased number of applications and resident concerns with preexisting facilities. The purpose of the moratorium is to give Aurora city staff the chance to develop new guidelines surrounding such facilities.
Aurora residents have previously complained about noise from the city’s CyrusOne data center’s back up generators. Naperville residents have pointed to the noise issues in Aurora as a point of concern for the city.
In response to potential noise issues, Naperville city staff hired a third-party engineer to investigate any potential noise issues that could come with the proposed data center and found that Karis’ planned development is compliant with city standards.
The idea of a moratorium for data centers has also floated around Naperville. The Naperville Environment and Sustainability Task Force published a statement in the Daily Herald calling for a six-month moratorium on the approval and permitting of data centers. A Naperville city councilman also signaled support for a possible moratorium at last week’s council meeting.
“I could support a temporary pause that’s clearly defined, aimed at setting a fair, transparent standard that we can give to our developers and our community so they know that we’re not just making ad hoc decisions,” Councilman Ian Holzhauer said.
Whitaker, however, noted that the moratorium imposed by Aurora exempted any pending applications.
“Aurora was very specific in the approval of the moratorium that the moratorium did not apply to any pending application before the city of Aurora, and that is an essential requirement of establishing a moratorium,” Whitaker said.
As far as other additions to the proposal, Karis plans on offering a stewardship pledge in response to the numerous concerns they have received. They also plan on enrolling in Naperville’s green energy certificate program.
“What that’ll mean is we’ll purchase renewable energy credits through the City of Naperville’s pre-existing program, and that’ll certify that 100% of our megawatt hours, its load usage is matched to renewable energy placed on the grid,” said Patrick Skarr, a spokesperson for the project.
cstein@chicagotribune.com