‘Everyone is relieved’: Naperville council rejects data center plan

In one of its most closely watched decisions in recent memory, the Naperville City Council rejected a proposed data center that sparked significant backlash.

Families in surrounding neighborhoods coalesced against the project, sounding the alarm about power consumption, noise pollution and emissions from diesel generators. Most council members ultimately shared many of their concerns, voting down the project 6-1 after months of outcry.

“All the neighbors have been exhausted by this process. I know that everyone is relieved,” said James Butt, a technologist who has consulted for data center companies and customers who have moved into them.

Karis Critical sought to develop the facility on vacant land close to Naperville and Warrenville roads. Butt lives near the site and warned Wednesday of a race to get the “commitments to get these things built” before the “power is not there.”

Butt said some facilities are on yearslong waiting lists for power.

“So everyone's trying to get in front of that, and I think they're also trying to get in front of the growing public opposition,” he said.

Naperville City Councilwoman Supna Jain also addressed that issue, saying the capacity of both ComEd’s and Naperville’s electric systems is not unlimited.

“In light of the uncertainty of the future availability and cost of electricity, I'm concerned that approving this proposal may constrain the city's ability to support future development in the I-88 corridor without substantial additional investment” of city time and resources, she said.

Councilman Patrick Kelly noted there’s already four and soon to be five neighborhoods in the area.

“While there is little argument that data centers are needed to facilitate the smooth operation of modern technologies, a data center is not necessarily needed at this particular location,” he said. “Data centers are propagating at a rapid pace throughout the state, and it is possible that other locations within the city of Naperville would be appropriate as well.”

The developer made another reduction in the scale of the plan to a roughly 145,000-square-foot facility to comply with city-staff negotiated terms of a development agreement.

“One of the details in that agreement is that the power capacity to this facility would be capped at 36 megawatts,” project attorney Russ Whitaker said. “That's 36 megawatts total load. When you have 36 megawatts total load, you back into 24 megawatts of IT power.”

Mayor Scott Wehrli and Councilman Nate Wilson abstained from the vote. Councilman Josh McBroom cast the lone vote against rejecting the project.

Whitaker asked to continue the case to February so air dispersion modeling could be presented to the council.

“By reducing the scale of the facility, it changed the inputs for that air dispersion modeling. We were no longer modeling 24 diesel engines,” Whitaker said. Instead, “there would be 16 diesel engines on site, 12 of which would be required for backup generation.”

Wehrli sought to table a decision, but that effort failed.

“We do take two meetings to decide whether or not to put a stop sign in. We're making a decision on a half-billion-plus dollar investment in our city, and I think it's important that we hear all that information,” the mayor said.

In a statement, Karis project spokesman Patrick Skarr said the developer “committed to investing hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a best‑in‑class facility at a site that has long served as an anchor of Naperville’s technology and jobs corridor.”

“We are assessing all our options and evaluating sites across the region where we can invest in ways that strengthen the community, economy, and critical infrastructure,” Skarr said Wednesday. “Our goal is to develop advanced computing campuses that help organizations transform electricity into actionable intelligence to solve complex problems, enable essential technologies to function, and advance society.”

Frank Gravina, secretary/treasurer of a labor union, the DuPage County Building Trades, criticized the council’s decision.

“For families to afford to live in Naperville, we need our jobs corridor to provide jobs, and those celebrating the denial of a significant investment to renew a vacant property in Naperville’s research corridor are misguided,” he said in a statement. “Make no mistake about it, six officials took years of high-paying, high-skilled work away from the men and women of the trades, hurting local families, the economy, and our community.”

Residents, however, said a data center conflicted with the Naperville’s own land-use master plan, which calls for “medium-density residential” on the property.

“If it does end up being medium-density residential, then there is an affordability gain there. We have an immense shortage of housing in Naperville right now,” Councilman Ian Holzhauer said.

Opponents were particularly worried about the exhaust from diesel generators.

“This is not the same as diesel exhaust from an Amazon truck or fast-moving traffic on a highway half a mile away, and that is why, historically, heavy industry is separated and placed away from residential neighborhoods,” Naper Commons resident Sujay Shah said.

Butt has said the city should update its noise ordinance to be tailored to facilities like this.

“Fuel storage, the generators, all of these things really should be codified more specifically to protect (residents) and not have these things, again, be built next to homes,” he said.

Neighbors spent “thousands of hours” doing research and preparing documents.

“The amount of expertise that happens to live all together in our four neighborhoods, I think, is pretty unique,” Butt said. “I worry about other areas.”