A member of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen has pushed back on a possible plan for a $600 million data center at the Armory in Midtown.
In an open letter, Ward 9 Alderman Michael Browning called the proposal to build two data centers at the former site of the Armory shortsighted and said it could create a void in Midtown.
“It has the potential to be detrimental to the entire City through its lack of vision, its questionable economic benefit, and its intensive energy and water demands,” Browning wrote.
On Friday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Rod Thomas of Creve Coeur-based TriStar Properties seeks to purchase the Ward 11 Armory property from Green Street Real Estate Ventures for $25 million and repurpose it as a data center. A second data center would be built in the building’s parking lot.
Previously, Thomas filed a request for a $600 million project at the site, but few details were immediately available on the plan.
Browning said that, if approved, the plan would go back on efforts to reestablish the area as a live and play district of St. Louis. He said a data center in Midtown would detract from the city’s goal to create a more walkable, mixed-use St. Louis.
"We recently adopted a new strategic land use plan, and that really is all about planning our city to be mixed use, urban and walkable, connected, connecting neighborhoods where people feel like they can live, work and play,” he said.
In his letter, Browning also questioned the economic benefit of the project as well as its power and water consumption. He called the details of the proposal “shaky.”
“I do not think we should throw out our planning practices in exchange for temporary jobs and vague promises,” he said.
The plan will go before a conditional use hearing at 8:15 a.m. Thursday over Zoom.
It will be the first data center to undergo a more stringent process to evaluate allowing conditional use permits to the developments after Mayor Cara Spencer signed an executive order last week.
Spencer said she expects the order to increase scrutiny of data center projects while creating a framework within the existing permitting process. The city originally debated putting a temporary ban on any new data center proposals after city staff told the Planning Commission that more research was needed on the developments.
“We want to be open for business,” Spencer said of the order. “We recognize that data centers play a role in — an important role — in the technology infrastructure that forward-thinking, forward-moving cities need to have as part of an ecosystem that can attract other types of technology companies and technology innovation to their communities.”
That decision came shortly after St. Charles put a yearlong moratorium on any new data center proposals following public outcry over a proposed development. Records uncovered by St. Louis Public Radio show Google is likely behind the project.
Browning said while he supports the executive order, more time is needed to understand where data centers should go. He said, in the meantime, something that would benefit the city should go in the Armory space.
“If there's anything that is testament to what we can do in this area, it's the Foundry right to the north of this site that used to be the old federal mobile site, and it used to be the biggest polluter in St. Louis,” he said. “Now you can go to it any time of day and see people. There's a movie theater, a grocery store, shops and restaurants.”
