A crowd of at least 200 people filled pews of a Forest Park Southeast neighborhood church Sunday afternoon to speak against a proposal to build new data centers in St. Louis.
The community town hall at St. Cronan Church, the second of three events planned within a week, is the latest sign of a swell of public concern about a proposed $1.5 billion project that would transform the now-shuttered Armory building in Midtown and its parking lot into two large data centers.
Attendees at Sunday’s event, hosted by 17 environmental and labor groups, voiced a clear message: no new data centers in St. Louis. The town hall’s emcee, activist Maxi Glamour, and other speakers called for Mayor Cara Spencer and the Board of Aldermen to put a stop to the Armory project and to enact a one-year moratorium on the construction of any new data centers.
The next town hall event is at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Sheet Metal Workers Union Hall on Chouteau Avenue and is hosted by consultants for the developers, THO Investments and Simms Building Group.
Pushback against the project started weeks ago after details of the development came to light. The project would be the largest data center proposed in the region yet and the second in recent months. The developer of a $1 billion project in St. Charles put the project on ice after community pushback led to a yearlong moratorium in the city.
Many at the town hall Sunday said they’re worried the proposed data center and future developments in the area might add to already rising electricity bills and cause issues with water consumption, as large data centers have in some communities.
“City residents deserve information and input into the decision-making process for industrial uses that cause harm to health and environment,” said Maxine Gill, a member of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment.
At a town hall last week hosted by the proposed Armory project’s developer, James O’Mara, a representative from Ameren, said the proposed data center at the site of the Armory would not raise rates due to legislation passed in March in Missouri.
O’Mara said the law protects consumers from shouldering rate hikes from new data center development. The law requires large utilities to write tariffs for customers requesting more than 100 megawatts of energy to ensure customers’ rates don’t reflect any “unjust or unreasonable cost.”
However, state regulators say the new demand for energy for data centers across the state will require expensive new power plants. According to the Missouri Public Service Commission’s director of industry analysis, Ameren’s proposal for new large data center rates could raise Missourians’ electric bills by an estimated $22 million per year.
The community’s initial response to the Armory data center proposal prompted an executive order from Spencer pushing the city to react swiftly to zoning and permitting concerns for data centers.
The groups that hosted the event Sunday say the executive order isn’t enough and called for a yearlong moratorium on data center development in St. Louis. An online petition for such a ban has garnered more than 12,300 signatures since late September.
Currently, the future of the Armory project lies in the hands of city officials. The developers must gain a conditional use permit through a hearing to build the data centers. A hearing scheduled for that purpose earlier this month was postponed.
Developer Rod Thomas, who manages THO Investments, told STLPR his company requested a postponement. He said the 44-question survey from the city required by Spencer’s executive order would take time but noted that when it's completed, he plans to request the permit again.
