Proposed data center render (via City of Inver Grove Heights) (FOX 9)
INVER GROVE HEIGHTS, Minn. (FOX 9) - The City of Inver Grove Heights has been threatened with potential legal action over a proposed data center in the city, as the city considers a ban on data centers.
Planned data center
The backstory:
The property owner, QLevr LLC, is looking to build a 54,000 square-foot facility at the former Travel Tags building on Carmen Avenue East.
Plans for the data center have been in the works for months, and this project is what prompted the city to move forward with the data center moratorium. The council will consider the application for the project at its meeting on Tuesday.
The other side:
At the same meeting, the Inver Grove Heights City Council could hold a vote on the one-year moratorium on data centers.
The moratorium would bar the construction or expansion of existing data centers and give the city 12 months to study the impacts of data centers on city infrastructure.
Legal warning
What we know:
A letter included in the city council agenda includes threats of legal action if the council's decision isn't guided by standard zoning laws.
The developer points out that state law prohibits the city from applying the moratorium to the QLevr project because QLevr had already submitted its application before the moratorium took effect.
In the letter, QLevr's attorneys warned that if a decision on the project is "based on anything outside the objective zoning criteria, it would be insufficient and expose the City to significant legal risk."
Dig deeper:
Developers say the building would only use about the same water as one to two single-family households and draw about five megawatts of power. In comparison, the Google Hyperscale data center has enough capacity for 700 megawatts (though actual power use for the Google project is unknown).
QLevr says the project will use closed-loop water cooling, meaning the project will have the same water use as one to two single-family homes.
What's next:
Ahead of Tuesday's meeting, the council will meet for a closed session to discuss the legal threats from QLevr. During the regular meeting, they will hold a second reading of the data center moratorium and may choose to waive the third reading and hold the final vote on the moratorium Tuesday night.
After the moratorium, council members will also consider QLevr's application for its data center at the same meeting.
The regular meeting begins at 6 p.m. on Tuesday due to the Memorial Day holiday.