Lansing Planning Commission recommends rezoning for data center

Lansing Planning Commission members voted Tuesday to recommend that the City Council rezone a parcel of land near the Rio Grande where a 24-megawatt data center is planned.

Although the committee Repartition request previously denied Some commissioners at British data center company Deep Green reversed their stance and voted 5 to 2 in favor of the resubmission request.

Currently, parking is located on the land between Cedar and Larch streets. However, if the City Council approves the rezoning request and the land sale, the 2.5 acres will be redeveloped for a data center and a 16-megawatt fuel cell plant to power the facility.

In a presentation to the Planning Commission, Deep Green representatives noted that the company has written several commitments into its purchase and sale agreement and contract with the Water and Power Commission to ensure they are legally binding. These include a commitment to local noise limits, upfront payment for all required energy infrastructure, and an option for the city to buy back the land if the project does not progress within two years.

As for why they’re building the project in downtown Lansing, Rob Stolpestad, a member of the project’s development team, explained that Deep Green’s model relies on thermal reuse. Part of the facility’s plans includes using the heat generated by its equipment to power BWL’s downtown heating circuit as it is converted from steam to hot water.

“The proposed site is located right on the edge of BWL’s planned hot water network, ensuring efficient use of heating infrastructure while placing the building in a location already surrounded by similar land uses,” Stolpestad said. “We have a water treatment plant to the west, solar panels to the north and an auto repair center to the east.”

Planning Commissioner Anthony Cox, who voted against the rezoning, pressed Deep Green on its water usage, and Stolperstad explained that the facility will use a closed-loop system for cooling, which will reduce water usage compared to traditional data centers.

Stolpestad explained that the data center will use 500,000 gallons of water per year.

The project will use a water-glycol mixture for cooling, provided and processed off-site by Dow Chemical or a similar entity, said Jack Pressman, development manager for the facility.

Backers of the project believe the data center could be an economic boon to the city, signaling new activity on a long-vacant site.

“It’s clear that there’s not going to be a lot of opportunity for this underutilized parking lot in the future, and we should take a moment to look at what that might look like and what the potential tax base might look like in all jurisdictions going forward,” said Emma Bostwick, vice president of business attraction for Lansing Economic Zone Partners.

However, multiple people noted that Deep Green has not yet completed any studies on the facility’s environmental impact. They also raised concerns about the impact of fuel cell facilities, which use chemical reactions rather than combustion to generate energy from natural gas.

“Despite what Deep Green would have you believe, this plant pollutes. It emits the same amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, about 60 to 70 percent of a conventional natural gas plant,” said Ivan Droste, a resident of the city’s southwest district. “In an era of worsening climate change and volatile gas prices, we will build a gas plant in the heart of the city.”

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Nichole Keway Biber, an organizer with Clean Water Action in Central Michigan, noted that just because the site has been developed before, that doesn’t mean the facility won’t have an impact on the environment.

“Places can be restored. Rivers can have a vision for restoration,” said Covey-Bieber, referring to drainage projects such as One of them is located in Frondo Shopping Center miles away as a potential option.