Data centers in DeKalb County, Illinois: 2 projects mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

DeKalb's south side has become a data center district by design. Meta's DeKalb data center, first announced in 2019 under the code name Project Ventus, opened in November 2023: five buildings, 2.3 million square feet and about $1 billion of investment, capped at 200,000 gallons of water a day. "Guess who's coming to DeKalb? Facebook," former Mayor Jerry Smith recalled the city manager telling him. The city credits the tax revenue with letting School District 428 open a new $33 million elementary school without a referendum. Mayor Cohen Barnes told state legislators in April 2026 that some Northern Illinois University dormitories use more water than Meta during term, and that he wants local control rather than state-mandated community benefits.

A smaller, older proposal is still on file nearby: in 2024 Karis Acquisitions won zoning approval for a seven-building, 132-acre campus at Peace and Gurler roads, next to Meta's site, without naming an end user; the city has announced no update on it since.

In December 2025 the City Council approved a much larger neighbor: Edged, a division of Endeavour Energy, on about 560 acres of the ChicagoWest Business Center along Illinois Route 23 south of Meta, four buildings and two substations to be fully built out by 2032 and rented to hyperscale cloud companies. It will use waterless chillers, and until ComEd finishes a $197 million transmission upgrade, the Kishwaukee Area Reliability Expansion Project, it plans to run on natural gas generators. Neighbors in the South Pointe Greens subdivision objected to the noise. "I just think it's poorly placed next to a residential area," said Michelle McGill. "Our neighborhood's going to endure the noise, lights and traffic." Some speakers said the vote was rushed. "Whether spoken on the basis of fear or fact," City Manager Bill Nicklas said, "I think it's safe to say that all speakers tonight are agreed that the approval of this project would bring change."

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.