ST. CHARLES — The fate of a proposed data center in St. Charles will be decided in a Tuesday night city council meeting that’s been moved to the St. Charles County Convention Center because of high public interest.
A draft agenda has not been released, but city leaders have said they intend to hold a public hearing and to vote on a request for a special use permit from developer CRG Cumulus.
The developer — who has ties to developer Clayco, which has offices in Berkeley — is hoping to receive the council’s approval for a proposed 440-acre data center in an industrial area between Huster Road and Harry S Truman Boulevard in St. Charles.
The campus — the size of 333 football fields — would consist of five 285,000-square-foot warehouses that would be architecturally similar to Amazon’s fulfillment center in St. Peters, according to city documents.
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The developer has not said what company would ultimately use the data center, and city officials — including St. Charles Mayor Dan Borgmeyer — have said they signed non-disclosure agreements so they can’t talk about the project either.
Development proposals are typically addressed in the open at public meetings. Having city leaders sign NDAs — where they won’t be able to discuss any project detail — is unusual.
The city council meeting will be held at the convention center’s first-floor junior ballroom. Doors to the convention center, located at 1 Convention Center Plaza, will open at 6 p.m., ahead of the meeting’s 7 p.m. start time.
Borgmeyer said he is encouraging the public to first attend a town hall forum about the project on Thursday at the Foundry Art Centre.
“I am not saying that it will make people in favor of it, but I hope as responsible citizens that people will see that there is another side to this issue,†Borgmeyer said during the city’s planning and zoning commission meeting earlier this week.
Nearby residents have become vocal opponents of the proposed data center development, with more than 3,800 people signing an online petition urging the council to block the project.
They worry about the data center’s high water usage could strain the city’s water system. The city is already buying water from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½.
Neighboring business owners also worry about how much electricity the data center will consume, and whether that will interrupt power service elsewhere in the city.
Robert Burns, owner of Patriot Machine in St. Charles, said last week that every time the power flickers his business loses $60,000 because it interrupts production.
“If that happens once a month, that’s very hard for us to recover from,†Burns said. “If the power is worse, because of the data center, then it would be ruinous to us at Patriot Machine. It would cause tremendous harm to many businesses.â€
Ameren has said it would likely need to build a substation on the property, and CRG Cumulus is asking the city for permission to store up to 1 million gallons of diesel fuel on the site for back-up generators.
The developer’s request will need support from seven of 10 councilmembers to pass, because the city’s planning and zoning board has recommended denial.
