Another data center, spec building planned in Elk Grove Village
Elk Grove Village officials have endorsed Cook County property tax breaks for two major redevelopment projects that would create a mini-data center campus and add a new speculative industrial building to an area they've been priming for a fresh look.
The village board recently supported two developers' applications for Cook County Class 6B property tax incentives, which would allow their sites to be assessed at lower levels for a dozen years.
The larger of the two projects, on the southwest corner of Lunt Avenue and Nicholas Boulevard, involves the purchase and demolition of four old buildings to make way for a new two-story, 167,000-square-foot data center.
EdgeConneX, a Herndon, Virginia-based technology firm, already operates a data center nearby at 1800 Nicholas Boulevard, and recently started converting a one-story, 63,250-square-foot building at 2021 Lunt Ave. into another such facility.
Between the forthcoming 7-megawatt data center now undergoing renovations and the 22.4-megawatt building just proposed, the two-phase project is worth an estimated $300 million in new capital investment, officials say.
The buildings will join a growing roster of more than a dozen of the computer storage sites in the Northwest suburb, one of the largest concentrations of data centers in the country.
EdgeConneX officials say the new construction - which will involve space for data center operations, plus supporting office and security space, new sidewalks, parking lot and landscaping - will begin during the second or third quarter of 2022 and be completed by the end of 2023.
Elsewhere, the village board also supported a tax break for Rosemont-based Bridge Industrial, which plans to construct a 58,858-square-foot industrial speculative building on vacant land the firm is buying at 81 Northwest Point Blvd. The proposed $7 million commercial structure - with a 30-foot clear building height and six exterior docks - is smaller than a similar project the real estate firm is building on spec nearby.
That development, a planned $15.3 million, 147,000-square-foot facility at 150 Northwest Point Blvd., earned the village's support for a tax incentive in November.
Final approval is up to the county board, allowing the properties to be assessed at 10% of market value for 10 years, then 15% in the 11th year and 20% in the 12th year. Industrial property is normally assessed at 25%.
Village review of the proposed spec buildings comes after the board last year approved new zoning and design guidelines that rebrands Northwest Point as an "innovation and technology center" district. It's an attempt to rejuvenate the old office park near the Jane Addams Tollway and attract further redevelopment.