The City of Bloomington and Central Illinois Regional Airport [CIRA] have both said there are no redevelopment plans at the location rumored to become a data center in southeast Bloomington.
One city council member said the city plans to soon have a public conversation about whether the city should entertain offers for data centers — and under what conditions.
Members of the public voiced concerns during the Bloomington City Council meeting on March 23 over the idea that a development in southeast Bloomington was being eyed as the site of a new data center. The land there is partially owned by the Central Illinois Regional Airport.
Melissa Beaver, manager of marketing and communications at CIRA, said there is no development or redevelopment agreement being discussed regarding a data center or otherwise. The airport authority, City of Bloomington and a neighboring property owner are seeking a state grant to fund a collection of preliminary environmental, survey and site characteristic data. This information could be used to identify ways to realign roadways to improve access to the site, which is in the area of Ireland Grove and Abraham Roads. It would increase potential for its development into an industrial park, with support from the airport and a railroad nearby.
The action last Monday was to support a grant application, and city spokesperson Katherine Murphy said it was pulled from the agenda to allow CIRA to finish a full review.
Fielding interest
The City of Bloomington has been approached by developers interested in building a data center. City council member Abby Scott said that interest has been serious enough that it is time to start having conversations with the public about what developments may look like. But the city council would expect many limitations and many questions answered before any proposal went up for a vote.
“It would have to be some sort of closed loop cooling center, so that we're not putting additional strains on our already strained water sources. We would have to have conversations about, bring your own energy source, that it's not, you know, pulling down all the energy for our own grid,” said Scott.
Concerns would also need to be addressed about noise and light pollution, Scott said.
“I am certainly not for rubber stamping any sort of behemoth without absolutely double-checking the effect on our own environment, our own tax structure, our own grid, our own water, etcetera,” said Scott.
While the potential for development into an "industrial park" turned heads, Scott said it would not have sparked such debate if messaging from the city was more clear about how it was not for the purpose of building a data center.
The term “industrial park” was used by a developer hoping to build a data center in Pekin. The City of Pekin recently made the decision not to move forward with it.
“If we had that conversation beforehand, I think that there would not have been, say, a simple spark that grew into flames,” said Scott. “But at the same time, I'm glad that it did happen. It's really important that people are able to share what's important to them.”
County 'not very interested'
The McLean County Board has been taking steps to regulate data centers in the county. The Zoning Board of Appeals was asked in October to amend the county zoning ordinance to include specific restrictions on data centers. It would regulate where and how they may be developed.
“This was intended to be temporary,” said Lea Cline, who chairs the county board’s land use and transportation committee. “Simply to make sure that anybody who wanted or was thinking about submitting an application to build a data center would have to come through the special use process.”
New ordinances were passed in March. Applications would only be considered for industrial areas designated as M1 and M2 zoning. There is not much space in the county with that designation; most is zoned for agricultural or commercial use.
“I think that sends a signal to developers that we are not very interested. There are other counties around us who have permitted applications in the agricultural district, and we are not allowing that,” said Cline.
Cline said it is important to have conversations between county leadership and residents about whether a data center would be desirable, even if she does not expect any major proposals to come to the county anytime soon.
“I have not yet spoken to a board member who is in any way enthusiastic about a data center,” said Cline. “There might be some softening about smaller data centers.
“What we recognize is that there's a very broad range here, and so we need to be careful about putting all of them in one pot. So I do think there are a couple of board members who are a little bit more amenable to the idea of the smaller data centers, these, you know, non-aggressive data centers.”
State law prevents a county from enacting a blanket ban of data centers. Any industry legal in Illinois is protected from being wholly restricted through zoning powers. Attempting to skirt around that would put the county into a legal battle Cline said it would not win. But the county still does have the ability to reject a proposal if it does not meet certain expectations.
“It's not like wind and solar projects where that’s sort of been taken away from us [the ability to reject proposals]. We still have total control over interpreting the information that companies give us and whether or not that meets our specifications as a county,” said Cline.
