First data center in Sangamon County

A Dallas-based company is seeking zoning approval to establish a $500 million data center on 280 acres of farmland southwest of Springfield in what would be the largest building construction project in Sangamon County history.

CyrusOne, which operates more than 55 data centers across the United States, Europe and Japan – including two in the Chicago area – filed the request in recent days for a conditional permitted use in an agricultural zone at the northwest corner of Thayer and Clark roads in Talkington Township, 14 miles southwest of Springfield.

Six 250,000-square-foot, one-story buildings would be constructed as part of the project. The total indoor space would be the size of 26 football fields, and the project’s footprint would be more than three times the size of Springfield’s Scheels Sports Complex at Legacy Pointe.

CyrusOne would establish the first data center in Sangamon County, and the project would represent one of the first modern data centers in central Illinois, according to Ryan McCrady, president and chief executive officer of the Springfield Sangamon Growth Alliance.

Data centers provide computer servers and other equipment and high-speed data transmission lines that help power the internet. The growing uses of artificial intelligence has led to a surge in data center construction in recent years.

The proposed Sangamon County project “would be one of our larger campus developments,” CyrusOne said Oct. 17 in written responses to questions from Illinois Times. “The Sangamon County site offers the power infrastructure, skilled workforce and strategic locations we need, while our investment provides the tax revenue and economic benefits the community needs. It’s a partnership that works for both sides.”

The project would create hundreds of temporary construction jobs and approximately 100 full-time jobs for workers with technical, facility management and operational roles, CyrusOne said.

The zoning request is scheduled to be considered for a nonbinding recommendation Nov. 20 by the Sangamon County Zoning Board of Appeals. The Sangamon County Board would have the final say and could vote as soon as its Dec. 9 meeting.

County Board member Craig Hall, a Republican whose district includes the proposed project site, said he hasn’t formed an opinion about it, and most of his constituents know little to nothing about the project yet.

McCrady, who has been working with CyrusOne officials, said company officials would like to begin construction in 2026 and complete it in 2027.

The project would significantly increase property tax revenues for school districts and other local taxing entities and help hold down property tax bills for residents, McCrady said. He said he is working on estimates for increases in tax revenues, but he noted that some of the taxing entities that would benefit include Sangamon County and the Waverly and North Mac school districts, Talkington Township and the Virden Fire Protection District, he said.

“This is very good news for our area, especially when you think about what it will mean for the assessed value across the entire county,” McCrady said.

He added that the project has support from the Growth Alliance, a nonprofit economic development group made up of representatives from private companies and local governments.

“The real solution to stabilizing or lowering everybody’s property tax burden is to increase the value of properties in your county,” McCrady said. “It’s also going to continue to attract jobs and stable employment into the community.”

The proposed data center would be immediately north of Swift Current Energy’s $800 million Double Black Diamond solar farm, which began operating in April and covers 4,200 acres in Sangamon and Morgan counties.

CyrusOne was attracted to the site because of the availability of willing sellers of large plots of land and the nearby proximity of Ameren high-volume electric transmission lines, McCrady said. Those lines also serve the solar farm, which is one of the largest in the country. The data center would require 600 megawatts of electricity, McCrady said. That amount of electricity can power between 120,000 and 420,000 homes.

New data centers have raised concerns among the public because of their sometimes high use of water to cool computer equipment, and their high use of electricity, which can fuel increases in electric rates and lead to criticism about speeding climate change when the power is created by burning fossil fuels.

McCrady said data center companies have pivoted to newer and different technology to reduce concerns about water usage.

CyrusOne, which would connect to the Apple Creek Rural Water system for the Sangamon County data center and create a septic system for sewage, said in its responses that the facility would use “air-cooled, closed-loop technology” instead of water to prevent equipment from overheating.

“Our water usage will be comparable to a standard office building – primarily for restrooms and basic facility operations, not for cooling equipment,” the company said. “This air-cooling approach is standard across all CyrusOne facilities, which means we won’t be drawing significant amounts of water from local supplies.”

Elsewhere in Illinois, CyrusOne operates data centers in Aurora and Lombard and is developing data centers in Wood Dale and Yorkville. The company said it has invested more than $1.2 billion so far in its Illinois infrastructure.

When asked about potential strain on the power grid, CyrusOne provided this response:

“CyrusOne will pay for all transmission line upgrades and infrastructure improvements required to power this data center. Residents will not pay for these upgrades. We’ll enter into agreements with Ameren Illinois and Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative that ensure we pay for the electricity we use and our fair share of the grid costs.”

The statement said Cyrus will work with Ameren, MISO (an electric grid operator for the central U.S.) and the RECC “to ensure this facility will not strain the local grid.”

McCrady said the multi-state region served by MISO, which includes the Springfield area and part of Illinois, is dealing with coal-fired power plants and other plants using fossil fuels closing down because of age and state legislation mandating reductions in carbon emissions.

States and communities need to work harder to develop more base electric capacity – beyond what is produced by solar and wind technology – to help stabilize electric rates, McCrady said.

The Sangamon County Board on July 8 unanimously approved a change to the county zoning ordinance that avoids the need to rezone agricultural land for a data center. Instead, the County Board can vote to grant a “conditional permitted use” within an agricultural district.