A data center proposed for St. Louis’ Midtown neighborhood drew hostile questions from city residents last night, with broad concerns and skepticism about the purported benefits of a $600 million data center east of the Armory.
Steadfast City, a consultant working on behalf of developers THO Investments and Simms Building Group, hosted Monday night’s in-person meeting, which drew hundreds to the Sheet Metal Workers Union Hall. This was the second such meeting; the consultant also hosted a virtual one last Thursday.
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Steadfast City managing principal Cecilia Dvorak led the roughly two-hour discussion with the goal of gathering community feedback the developers could respond to. “I’m here to listen and work with the developer, to take into consideration everything that we hear tonight and do our best to incorporate that into [our proposal],” she said.
Dvorak made a point of clarifying that the proposal they were discussing was at 500 Prospect Ave., the empty parking lot just east of where the vacant Armory building sits. (The same developers have also reportedly pitched a data center for The Armory as part of an Armory Tech District , but Dvorak said that was not the meeting’s focus.)
After sharing a short presentation on how the development aligns with the city’s strategic land use policy and its purported local benefits, including an estimated $213 million in tax revenue over 10 years and a “closed loop” water system that would cut water consumption from typical data centers by an order of magnitude, Dvorak opened up the floor to the public.
Twenty-seven residents chose to speak publicly. A top concern echoed by a few of the speakers was whether the project would generate less local tax revenue as a result of tax breaks or other incentives.
Aldermanic President Megan Green emphasized that issue in her comments, raising questions about whether the developer could seek to tap into the tax increment finance district that encompasses the development or other tax incentives.
“We need to know that up front,” Green said. “There seems to be a lot of confusion around whether they are planning to seek tax incentives now or in the future. Good development should not make us choose between development tax revenue, construction jobs, or protecting our environment and residents.”
Jeremy Al-Haj, director of the Missouri Workers Center, put it more plainly: “You said nothing about an intention to not take any of those tax incentives. That to me is a serious problem.”
There were some new answers to this question from Midtown Development Corporation executive director Brooks Goedeker. His organization oversees the implementation of a redevelopment plan that encompasses the development site.
“This developer has not requested any form of tax abatement, and if they did, we would not support any form of tax abatement for this,” he said.
A member of the crowd shot back, “We’ll hold you to that.”
Other concerns raised by speakers included whether the development could lead to higher electricity rates for individual payers, the potential for it to create only minimal jobs in the long term, its environmental impacts, and a general disdain for generative artificial intelligence. Most of the two-minute speeches were met with cacophonous applause and hoops and hollers from the crowd.
Fortune Teller bar co-owner Ryan Schepers delivered one of the night’s most emphatic lines, underscoring the overwhelming negative sentiment in the room.
“President Green, you said recently that any moratorium against data centers would require overwhelming support. This is that overwhelming support,” Schepers said as the crowd erupted into cheers.
After hearing from residents, Dvorak used the last 30 minutes of the town hall as a chance to address some of the questions and issues raised by residents, including the concerns over electricity rates.
Ameren manager of economic development James O’Mara sought to quell those fears, citing the Missouri Senate bill passed this year requiring large electricity users to “pay their fair share,” including up-front costs associated with “design, construction, equipment procurement, that’s transformers, substation, line work etc.” O’Mara didn’t address whether that included the cost of new power generation, which a handful of residents argued would be borne by consumers.
When it came to jobs created by the project, Steadfast City senior project manager Nick Hartzler said it would net 30 jobs paying an average of $165,000 a year. Construction would generate another 600 short-term jobs, with estimated indirect and induced jobs of 106.
Dvorak sought to cast the meeting as “the start of a conversation.” She was cut off by an attendee shouting, “This is the end of the conversation.”
Dvorak responded, “I understand that there’s really no trust between us and the community,” which drew raucous applause.
She said the next steps for the consultants and the developer is to take the community feedback to heart and rework the project.
“Once we feel like we have a project that can be receptive, we would love to take it back to the conditional use hearing,” Dvorak said. “There’s a lot of changes before we’ll be able to get there, but that’s ultimately where we’d like to be.”
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated figures of the expected total tax revenue from the project and misstated “conditional use hearing” as “traditional use hearing.”
