Questions Worth Asking: A Citizen's Guide to Data Center Proposals

Over the past few days, we've covered a lot of ground.

We've explored what data centers are and why they're suddenly everywhere. We've compared data center employment to the industrial jobs that built this community. We've followed the money through utility rates and tax incentives. We've looked at how other Illinois communities are handling these same questions.

Now it's time to bring it home.

Mayor Parkinson has promised that if any data center proposal comes to Granite City, there will be public meetings. He's invited residents to attend, to listen to the data, and to engage with the process.

This article is designed to help you do exactly that. Consider it a citizen's guide - a checklist of questions worth asking at those public meetings, organized around the issues that matter most.

When a data center proposal comes before the public - whether in Granite City or anywhere else - these are the questions that cut through the marketing and get to what actually matters.

How many permanent positions will this facility create after construction ends?

Not construction jobs. Not indirect jobs. Not "positions supported." How many people will work at this facility full-time, year after year?

Expect the answer to be somewhere between 50 and 200. If the company claims significantly more, ask for specifics.

What is the wage range for those positions?

Are these $50,000 jobs or $25,000 jobs? Do they include benefits? How do they compare to existing employment opportunities in the area?

What percentage of positions will be filled by local residents?

Data centers often recruit nationally for technical positions. Is there a local hiring commitment? Is it binding?

What training or pipeline programs will the company support?

If the jobs require specialized skills, will the company invest in training local residents? Partner with community colleges? Create apprenticeship programs?

What happens if promised jobs don't materialize?

Are there clawback provisions? Penalties? Or can the company simply walk away from commitments without consequence?

What is the total assessed value of the proposed facility?

This establishes the baseline for understanding tax revenue.

What tax incentives is the company seeking?

Property tax abatements? Sales tax exemptions? How long do they last? What percentage reduction do they represent?

What is the net tax revenue after all incentives?

This is the number that actually matters. A $500 million facility with 20 years of 80% property tax abatement generates very different revenue than one paying full taxes.

How does that revenue compare to the costs the community will bear?

Consider infrastructure upgrades, utility impacts, road maintenance, and any other public costs associated with the facility. Is the net positive or negative?

Are there clawback provisions if the company doesn't meet commitments?

If jobs don't materialize, or if the facility closes, does the community have any recourse?

Who pays for the grid infrastructure needed to connect this facility?

Transmission lines, substations, transformers - these can cost tens of millions of dollars. Is the company paying, or are those costs being socialized to all ratepayers?

What is the projected impact on residential electric rates?

Has anyone modeled what this facility would mean for the average household's utility bill?

What is the projected impact on regional grid capacity costs?

Large loads can affect capacity auction prices across the entire service territory. Has this been analyzed?

Will the facility use renewable energy?

Is there a commitment to clean power, or will it increase demand for fossil fuel generation?

What demand response commitments will the company make?

Will the facility reduce consumption during peak demand periods to ease grid strain?

Will data center investment actually benefit the local grid?

Some proponents claim data centers can "stabilize" local grids through infrastructure investment. The evidence is mixed. In Papillion, Nebraska, data center growth did trigger major grid upgrades - but ratepayers are paying for those upgrades through 2.5-3% annual rate increases. Ask what the actual cost-benefit looks like for residential customers, not just for the utility or the data center company.

What arrangements exist with the utility?

In some cases, data center companies have worked with utilities on innovative frameworks - supplying renewable energy resources, sharing clean power benefits with other ratepayers, and co-investing in infrastructure. Has anyone approached Ameren about similar arrangements for Granite City? If not, why not?

How does our utility structure affect the options?

Ameren Illinois is an investor-owned utility operating under state regulatory oversight. That's different from a public power district like OPPD in Nebraska, which has more flexibility in rate structures and partnership arrangements. Understand what's actually possible given our utility situation.

What are the noise limits, and how will they be enforced?

Get specific numbers: decibel levels at the property line, day and night. What happens if the facility exceeds those limits?

How will backup generators be managed?

What fuel do they use? How often will they be tested? What emissions controls are required?

What is the projected water consumption?

Millions of gallons per day is common for large facilities. Where does that water come from? What happens during drought conditions?

What cooling technology will be used?

Some methods use more water; others use more energy. What are the tradeoffs?

What happens to wastewater?

Where does it go? Does the municipal system have capacity to handle it?

What cooling technology will this facility use?

Traditional evaporative cooling can consume 3-5 million gallons of water per day. Newer technologies like closed-loop liquid cooling or immersion cooling use far less - or essentially none. The difference matters.

Is the cooling technology commitment binding?

Verbal assurances aren't enough. The specific technology should be written into the development agreement with penalties for switching to cheaper, more water-intensive systems after approval.

What are the projected daily and annual water consumption figures?

Get specific numbers, in writing. Then ask how those numbers compare to current municipal water usage. A facility that would consume water equivalent to thousands of households changes the equation for the whole community.

Where does the water come from, and where does the wastewater go?

Surface water? Groundwater? Municipal supply? And is the local wastewater treatment facility designed to handle the additional volume?

What monitoring and reporting requirements will be in place?

Communities should know - not guess - how much water a facility actually uses. Quarterly or annual reporting should be required, with data made public.

What are the setback requirements from residential areas?

How close will this facility be to homes? To schools? To parks?

What lighting restrictions will be in place?

Data centers often operate 24/7 with security lighting. What limits exist on light pollution?

What traffic impacts are expected?

During construction? During operation? What road improvements are planned?

What is the visual impact?

These are often large, industrial-looking buildings. What design standards apply?

What happens if the facility closes?

Data centers can become obsolete. What's the plan for decommissioning? Who's responsible for remediation?

What opportunities exist for public input?

When and where can residents voice concerns? How will that input be incorporated into decisions?

What independent analysis has been conducted?

Are there studies not paid for by the developer? What do they show?

What have similar communities experienced?

Has anyone reached out to places that have hosted this company's facilities to learn from their experience?

What can't be changed once the facility is approved?

Some decisions are irreversible. What's locked in after approval versus what can be modified later?

It's not enough to ask questions - you need to know what good answers look like.

Good: "We'll create 75 permanent full-time positions with an average wage of $65,000 plus benefits, and we've committed to hiring at least 50% from within Madison County."

Concerning: "We anticipate significant job creation during construction and ongoing operations."

Good: "The company will pay 100% of the grid connection costs, estimated at $35 million, with no impact on residential ratepayers."

Concerning: "Infrastructure costs will be handled through standard utility processes."

Good: "Noise levels will not exceed 55 decibels at the property line, monitored continuously, with automatic penalties if exceeded."

Concerning: "We're committed to being good neighbors and minimizing noise impacts."

Specificity is your friend. Vague assurances should be treated skeptically.

Beyond the technical details, there are larger questions worth considering:

Does this fit Granite City's vision for itself?

Every economic development opportunity involves tradeoffs. A data center brings certain things (tax revenue, some jobs, connection to the digital economy) while changing others (industrial facilities in new areas, potential impacts on residents). Is this the kind of development Granite City wants?

Who benefits, and who bears the costs?

Tax revenue benefits the whole community, but noise and traffic primarily affect neighbors. Shareholders benefit from cheap electricity, but ratepayers bear the infrastructure costs. Are those tradeoffs fair?

What's the alternative?

If not a data center, what? Is this site better suited for other development? Is "nothing" a legitimate option?

What precedent does this set?

Approving one data center may attract others. Is that desirable? What limits should exist?

These aren't questions with right or wrong answers. They're questions that require the community to think about what it wants to become.

Mayor Parkinson invited residents to attend public meetings and engage with the process. That invitation should be taken seriously - and taken literally.

Showing up matters. Council members notice when chambers are full. Developers notice when the community is paying attention. Public comment periods exist for a reason.

But showing up informed matters more. The questions in this guide aren't designed to stop data centers - they're designed to ensure that if Granite City ever hosts one, it's on terms that genuinely serve the community's interests.

Good deals are possible. But they don't happen by accident. They happen when communities ask the right questions and demand real answers.

After this series was drafted, I had a conversation with Mayor Parkinson about where things stand.

His message to residents: give it time.

There is no offer on the table. Any interested developer would still need to acquire property, and city and council leadership are aware of a "triangle" of potential sites being explored across multiple Metro East communities - not just Granite City. The process, if it happens at all, will be long.

And it may not happen at all. Illinois has a legal landscape that makes data center development more complicated than in neighboring states. The Biometric Information Privacy Act - a 2008 law that restricts how companies can collect, store, and use biometric data like fingerprints and facial scans - has made some data center operators cautious about Illinois. The AI applications that drive much of today's data center demand often rely on exactly the kinds of data BIPA regulates. Industry groups are lobbying Springfield for exemptions, but unless the law changes, Illinois may be a harder sell than Indiana, Wisconsin, or Iowa.

The Mayor believes Granite City can learn from what other communities have experienced and negotiate a deal that genuinely benefits residents - if a proposal ever materializes. He's committed to ensuring there's ample time for public discussion once there's something concrete to discuss.

That's a reasonable position. And it's consistent with the approach this series has taken: not opposition, not cheerleading, but preparation.

The questions in this guide will be just as relevant six months or two years from now. Whenever something concrete emerges - if it ever does - Granite City residents will be ready.

There's another question worth asking - one that has nothing to do with data centers specifically, but everything to do with how Granite City makes decisions.

When Mayor Parkinson holds those public meetings he promised, who will be in the room?

Voter turnout data from the November 2024 election tells a story. The precincts surrounding Wilson Park - the historic homes where mill management, doctors, lawyers, and business leaders lived - turned out at nearly 75%. The subdivision anchored by The Legacy golf course on the east side: 74%.

Lincoln Place - the north side, Precincts 8 and 9 - turned out at barely 50%.

That's a 25-point gap. And it's not new.

A century ago, the Niedringhaus brothers laid out Granite City on a grid modeled after Washington, D.C. The grand homes near Wilson Park were developed for the people who would run the city's enterprise - the managers, the professionals, the civic leaders. And west of the railroad tracks, in the bottomland closer to the mills, immigrants from Bulgaria, Hungary, Macedonia, Armenia, and Mexico built Hungary Hollow with their own hands and their own wages. They did the dangerous work. They breathed the air. They made the steel that made this city.

Lincoln Place - as it was renamed in 1916 - has always been closer to the industry and further from the decisions about it.

That pattern is about to matter again.

If a data center proposal ever comes to Granite City, a likely location would be the industrial land near downtown and the steel mill - land closest to Lincoln Place, West Granite, and the waters of the mighty Mississippi, not the subdivisions by the golf course.

The neighbors who would hear the cooling systems running around the clock. The families whose kids would navigate construction traffic. The residents whose windows might face the site and whose property values hang in the balance - they're in the precincts that vote at half the rate of the rest of the city.

Public meetings don't require voter registration. Anyone can show up. But the patterns that shape who participates in elections tend to shape who participates in everything else. The people who showed up to fight for Hungary Hollow's name change in 1916 were engaged citizens who understood that having a voice required using it.

Their grandchildren and great-grandchildren still live in those houses - or today's citizens who follow their footsteps live in them.

If this issue matters to you - whether you support data centers, oppose them, or just want to understand what's being proposed - show up. Bring your neighbors. The decisions that get made will affect some neighborhoods more than others.

Make sure all of our neighborhoods have a voice.

When I started this series, I admitted that I didn't know enough about data centers to have an informed opinion. I suspect many of you were in the same position.

We've learned together. We've looked at the jobs data (not encouraging), the utility cost dynamics (complicated), the tax incentive structures (often less favorable than they appear), and the experiences of other communities (mixed).

What I've come to believe is this: Data centers aren't inherently good or bad. They're industrial facilities that can benefit communities or harm them, depending on how the deals are structured and how well communities protect their interests.

Granite City has been through enough broken promises to approach any economic development pitch with healthy skepticism. But skepticism isn't the same as cynicism. The goal isn't to reject everything - it's to evaluate proposals honestly and negotiate from strength.

If a data center proposal ever comes to Granite City, the community will have a choice to make. This series was designed to help residents make that choice with their eyes open.

Now it's up to you. Show up. Ask questions. Demand answers.

That's how democracy is supposed to work.

Here’s our article on how to get engaged.

This concludes our five-part series on data centers and what they could mean for Granite City. Questions or feedback? Contact me at [email protected]. All five articles are available at GraniteCitizen.com.

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