The developers behind the Armory data center announced a new plan Friday for the space.
The Armory Innovation District would be a $3 billion mixed-use technology district in Midtown St. Louis, according to a press release. The developers include Contour, TeraWatt, THO Investments, Steadfast City, ARCO and Lewis Rice.
Under the new plan, the historic Armory building will become office space, while a data center will be built at the adjacent Macy’s/Famous-Barr warehouse property.
The announcement says the data center will be a 120-megawatt facility, which is large enough to qualify it for Ameren Missouri’s new rate structure for large users of power like data centers and could be considered a “hyperscale” data center, often used to train and operate artificial intelligence. The announcement did not include information about a potential end user of the data center.
The developers said the new plan reflects stakeholder input, including public engagement. Hundreds of people attended meetings and town halls about the project in recent months to register their concern over its environmental and social impact.
The new price tag for the project is $3 billion, double earlier estimates of $1.5 billion laid out in city documents.
The development team said it will not seek any tax abatements or local development incentives. It estimates the project will generate almost $78.5 million in year-one taxes and fees, “including approximately $28.2 million for the City of St. Louis and $35.8 million for St. Louis Public Schools.”
Last week, St. Louis Zoning Administrator Mary Hart Burton told St. Louis Public Radio that the city hadn’t yet received additional information about the proposal or answers to a 44-question survey about the project’s scope and environmental impact.
The developers said Friday the project will use closed-loop and air-cooled systems to reduce water usage and a sound-reducing design around some equipment. They estimate the project will create 200 permanent onsite jobs and more than 1,000 construction jobs.
They also said it is important to locate the data center next to office space.
“Proximity reduces “latency” — the time it takes data to travel between users and servers — improving performance and reliability for data-intensive workflows,” the developers said in the press release.
