Yorkville City Council could approve 1,000-acre data center project tonight

The big day for the big one has finally arrived.

With the 1,037 acre Project Cardinal data center scheduled for some crucial votes, tonight could be the night Yorkville sows the seeds for a new digital manufacturing future.

While the developers and Mayor John Purcell have likened the project to bringing more in value to Yorkville than a Bears football stadium, several residents have likened the city’s plans to develop around 3,000 acres for data centers as trading in their idyllic pastoral landscape for a manufacturing wasteland.

Several residents have flat out said they will move from the city rather than live near industrial warehouses.

Project Cardinal proposes 14-two story data center warehouses, totaling more than 17 million square feet with two electrical substations and 3,750 parking spaces. The site, which requires 305 acres to be annexed by the city before all 1,037 acres are rezoned to manufacturing, is located northwest of Illinois Route 47 and Galena Road, south of Baseline Road, and east of Ashe Road.

The City Council is scheduled to voted on several matters requiring majority approval to move the project forward. The city could delay the votes to a later date in August.

On the council’s agenda is an ordinance approving the planned unit development agreement with the developers, Pioneer Development, LLC. This includes a separate ordinance vote for the annexation of the 305-acre parcel at the southwest corner of Baseline Road and North Bridge Street.

The City Council will also review a request for rezoning the potentially annexed land from agricultural to manufacturing.

While the data center campus’ construction is expected to take up to a decade to fully complete, the construction will begin in phases with each data center warehouse generating between $500,000 and $1 million annually in tax revenues for the city.

Several residents have voiced concerns about the city’s plan to convert 3,000 acres of agricultural land into a data center alley along the “Eldamain Road Corridor. Chief among their concerns are light and sound pollution, the negative aesthetics of so many new warehouses, and the proximity of the proposed warehouses to residential areas.

City administrator Bart Olson previously said more than 100 data center warehouses could be built over the next few decades.

The city is requiring all data center buildings to be more than 500-feet from the nearest residential or commercial structure. They must also have an eight-foot-tall berm along the perimeters, and a 100-foot landscape buffer from roadways.

Developers must also adhere to a sound pollution mitigation study, and create plans ensuring they do not exceed the city’s current noise ordinance regulations.

Seeking to capitalize on the proposed projects, Purcell has requested the developers of Project Cardinal to write an up-front check to the Yorkville 115 School District, which is currently seeking to finance a large facility expansion to better fit the community’s growing population.

City officials and members of the public also will be provided an opportunity to speak on the 540 acre Project Steel data center proposal which is also making its way through city approval.