St. Louis is pushing back a committee vote on a $3 billion data center project planned in Midtown after a request from Mayor Cara Spencer.
The city's Board of Public Service was set to vote Tuesday afternoon on the proposal, with a do-pass recommendation after a conditional use hearing. Spencer said at a press conference that the vote had been delayed but did not provide a date for when it would take place.
"Given the sensitivity and understanding, the outcome will be setting a precedent we wanted to give a little more due diligence on that project," Spencer said. "It's a work in progress."
Earlier in the day, the mayor's press secretary, Rasmus Jorgensen, said Spencer wanted to give the city more time to iron out new rules for data centers in the city.
"We asked the Board of Public Service to move this item to a later date to make sure we have time to thoroughly review the potential conditions, as we seek to ensure that the potential facility is built on terms that are enforceable and beneficial to the City and our community," said Rasmus Jorgenson, the mayor's press secretary, in a statement.
Currently, city government is considering a new framework of zoning rules for data centers designed by the Planning and Urban Design Agency.
The proposal would limit where different types of data centers can be built in St. Louis, prohibiting them in certain zoning districts and requiring each to obtain a conditional use permit, while adding strict requirements for applications and operations.
Developers want to build a 120-megawatt facility, which would be big enough to qualify for Ameren Missouri's new rate structure for larger users of electricity and may be considered a "hyperscale" data center.
The data center would be part of a larger plan for a technology hub at the historic Armory building, which would become office space. The data center would be built at the adjacent Macy's/Famous-Barr warehouse property.
The developers of the data center and tech hub include Contour, TeraWatt, THO Investments, Steadfast City, ARCO and Lewis Rice.
Previously, developers told the public they would not seek tax abatements or local development incentives for the project and estimated the hub could generate nearly $78 million in first-year taxes and fees.
The new plan comes after an original proposal to build a $1.5 billion data center in the parking lot of the Armory, once touted as St. Louis' largest bar, faced public backlash. At a recent conditional use hearing, opponents of the project spoke for hours during public comment, calling for the city to reject any data center proposals.
This story has been updated with the news that the vote had been pushed back.
Correction: A previous version of this story named the wrong board conducting the vote. It is the Board of Public Service.
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