Data centers in Grundy County, Illinois: 4 projects mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Grundy County has three data center proposals moving at once, and the biggest is meeting organized resistance. Morris residents who expected to meet Tract, a Colorado "master developer," in person over its 1,000-megawatt campus were offered two Zoom town halls instead, and a petition against it drew more than 100 signatures. According to county records reported by WCSJ, CP Morris Land LLC sold more than 350 acres near U.S. Route 6 and Gun Club Road to ILLCO Grundy County LLC for $51 million on December 19. Tract says the campus would bring $900 million in tax revenue over 20 years and 350 to 400 jobs, by its own projections, and has pledged $10 million toward the city's new water treatment plant.

The opposition is loud and organized. At an Aug. 18 council meeting with no data center item on the agenda, residents used public comment anyway; Jodi Pollack said the city and county board had offered "nothing but a script." Ami Frick, who drove two hours from Grayslake, described construction noise and a $100,000 drop in one neighbor's property value at a Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin data center. The meeting ended with Mayor Chris Brown cutting off comment, and most of the council left through the back door. Brown says the city is finishing a zoning ordinance covering water, noise, setbacks, power generation and decommissioning, to go before council committees in the coming months.

Two more projects are moving elsewhere in the county. In Coal City, Aligned Data Centers wants to build on industrial park land at Reed and Carbon Hill roads; a planned unit development is now before a village review committee after the village held a community meeting in February. North of Minooka, Equinix is building at Ridge and Holt roads; its western U.S. development chief, Guy Danskine, told the Minooka State of the Village address in April that the site "won't use any more water than a typical office building." The Morris zoning ordinance, Coal City's review of the Aligned plan, and the naming of an end user for Tract's site are all still pending.

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.