The Naperville City Council struck down a proposal for a data center in the Chicago suburb that sparked significant backlash from neighbors worried about energy consumption, noise pollution and emissions.
Council members voted 6-1 against the project proposal from Karis Critical, which sought to build a 145K SF facility with a power capacity of 36 megawatts. The developer wanted to build the data center on vacant land close to Naperville and Warrenville roads.
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The majority of local lawmakers shared many of the community's concerns over the potential downsides of the data center.
"In light of the uncertainty of the future availability and cost of electricity, I'm concerned that approving this proposal may constrain the city's ability to support future development in the I-88 corridor without substantial additional investment," said Naperville City Councilwoman Supna Jain, according to the Daily Herald.
Councilman Patrick Kelly said he agreed that data centers are needed to operate modern technologies, but it wasn't necessarily needed in this particular spot. Other locations within Naperville may still be a good fit, he said.
Karis Critical did not immediately respond to Bisnow's request for comment.
The company had reduced the scale of its plan to comply with the terms negotiated in a development agreement. Karis Critical spokesman Patrick Skarr released a statement following the vote, CBS News reported.
"We are disappointed by the outcome of the vote, which overturned the city plan commission's recommendation, and by the city council's decision not to allow additional time for further studies to address concerns regarding our operations," he said.
Skarr said at the meeting on Wednesday the developer is assessing all of its options and evaluating sites throughout the region, according to the Daily Herald.
The suburban data center pushback comes as overall data center construction spending doubled between 2024 and 2025, with expectations it will nearly double again in 2026. U.S. data center expenditures are projected to increase to $86B by 2026 but taper off slightly in the years following, according to a report from Moca Systems.
At the same time, politicians from local to national levels have increasingly made data center development a central policy issue. Lawmakers in Virginia, California, Texas, Utah, Georgia and Ohio have moved toward measures to make data center companies cover a larger portion of the billions of dollars in grid infrastructure upgrades they need to operate.
Additionally, some state-level bills have centered on environmental impact reduction or defining local municipalities' control over data center development.
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