The Lake County Plan commission heard an initial presentation Wednesday about a proposed data center in Eagle Creek Township about six miles away from Lowell High School.
Sentinel Data Centers, a New York-based company with established data centers on the east coast, is proposing to build a data center on 160 acres of land outside of Lowell, on the south side of Indiana 2 just east of Clay Street, said project attorney David Westland.
The area is about two miles away from the nearest residential neighborhood and about six miles away from Lowell High School, Westland said. The data center would be near other industrial uses, like a nearby battery storage facility, he said. Tenaska, a Nebraska-based renewable energy company, received county zoning approval last year to develop a 300 megawatt battery storage facility on 35 acres of land near the same intersection, according to Post-Tribune archives, and NIPSCO would be interconnected to the grid.
The proposed data center follows the county’s comprehensive plan, Westland said. The due diligence period for the project will last through 2026, Westland said.
“We believe it fits,” Westland said. “I would argue that, but for maybe one other site in the entire county, this is the single best place for this.”
Andy Qunell, with VRQ LLC, who is assisting with the project, said project leaders have started conversations with NIPSCO to be involved in the data center, though he couldn’t disclose more information because of a nondisclosure agreement.
For water usage, Qunell said the site would have an air-cooled system, as well as septic and well systems for personnel use. The site would also have power generators, he said.
If the data center were established, it would bring a $5 billion investment, create more than 2,500 construction jobs, more than 250 on-site jobs, as well as increased business and vendor spending and expand the county’s tax base, Qunell said.
Right now, Qunell said project leaders don’t plan to file for a tax abatement, but that could be negotiated as part of the development agreement.
Lake County Plan Commission Director Ned Kovachevich said the next step for the project will be for the project leaders to apply for a zone change to an industrial zoning district. Once the rezoning application is filed, the Plan Commission will hold a public hearing about the zone change application, he said.
On Wednesday, the Plan Commission held a study session about the project, which meant no public comment because no formal requests have been filed yet, Kovachevich said. It’s likely the project will be heard by the Plan Commission at least four times, the County Council at least two times, and the Board of Zoning Appeals at least once, he said.
Plan commission member Randy Niemeyer said data center projects across the state have seen a lot of opposition “because of the secretive nature of how business has been conducted.”
“I want to make sure that we have a really high standard and expectation of transparency in this process,” Niemeyer said. “It’s so important that we lift the veil on this entire process.”
The NIPSCO information is under a nondisclosure agreement because the project hasn’t even received rezoning yet, Westland said. But, moving forward, the project will have a public process, he said.
“We’d want to be as transparent as possible,” Westland said.
Lisa Vallee, organizing director with Just Transition Northwest Indiana, said in a statement that she watched the plan commission meeting and was glad that the commission raised concerns about “secretive and misleading tactics” that surround data center projects.
For example, data center projects in Michigan City and Hobart have been tainted with the use of nondisclosure agreements and lack of transparency, Vallee said.
“Lake County is one of the most industrialized counties in the country, and we deal with the health and safety impacts of that every day. Data centers not only add to the burden of industrial pollution, but also to our power grid, Lake Michigan, and our beloved wildlife,” Vallee said.
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