A 160-acre farm field in a lightly inhabited area of south Lake County may someday be the site of a $5 billion data center development.
Last week, the New York-based company Sentinel Data Centers told the Lake County Plan Commission it is eyeing a parcel on the south side of State Road 2, just east of Clay Street, or nearly two miles east of Interstate 65, for its next hyper-scaler project.
Project attorney Dave Westland said the site is two miles from the nearest residential neighborhood, six miles from the nearest school and consistent with the county's comprehensive plan to develop a technology park in the area.
“I would argue but for maybe one other site in the entire county, this is the single best place for this,” Westland said. “This is a significant investment. We're talking about a $5 billion total anticipated investment.”
The data center would employ approximately 250 people once completed, but would require some 2,500 construction workers to build.
Sentinel already has had "very favorable conversations" with NIPSCO's GenCo affiliate to meet the data center's power needs at Sentinel's expense.
The Sentinel presentation to the plan commission was stylized as a "study session." To actually move forward, Sentinel will need to apply for a zoning change, which requires plan commission and county council approval following separate public hearings, along with approval for a special exception to construct and operate a data center in an unincorporated area of Lake County.
In August, an ordinance adopted by the Lake County Council set rigorous data center development standards including: a detailed site plan with emergency access routes, an energy capacity assessment, a water management plan, a noise mitigation strategy, a commitment to renewable energy and an environmental impact study, among others, following numerous data center controversies elsewhere.
