A crowd of about 100 people gathered with city officials and developers on Wednesday, June 10, at a contentious open house held in a vacant warehouse located in Midtown Center. The event focused on a redevelopment plan that includes a "computational research space."
The proposed redevelopment of the former Walmart at 5825 W. Hope Ave., which has been vacant for a decade, also involves plans for a public library, a self-storage facility, and an affordable housing unit across the street. Many attendees expressed concerns that the "research space" might actually be a data center and requested more details.
During the meeting, speakers emphasized the need for a redevelopment project that would better serve local residents and create more job opportunities. Attendees raised questions and even chanted at Alderman Mark Chambers and developer Trent Overhue.
"In the center of Midtown, this could be a community-oriented space," said Rory Kesselhan, who is from East Side. He criticized the officials' denial of the project including a data center, calling it "slippery fish language to continue to do what they would like to do."
Is It a Data Center?
Chambers and Overhue repeatedly denied that the planned 19,000-square-foot computing facility would be a data center. They insisted that it would only be used for research in areas such as medicine and defense, not for generative AI.
Chambers told the Journal Sentinel after the meeting that he would "absolutely not" support a redevelopment plan if it included what he considered a data center. However, many attendees argued that the facility fits all the criteria of a data center. According to its blueprint, the facility includes heavy-duty server racks, commercial cooling and air-conditioning units, and a backup generator.
Congress defines a data center as a "physical facility that houses and runs large computer systems." In recent years, large AI data centers that store and compute data for AI models have become a point of contention nationwide, including in Wisconsin.
Criticisms of the Meeting Venue and Business Impacts
The June 10 meeting was the first of three open houses hosted by Chambers following the announcement of the redevelopment plans and subsequent public discussions about the proposed data center. These discussions had taken place on social media platforms like Facebook and Reddit.
Groups such as the Party for Socialist Liberation and the Sherman Park Community Association have also opposed the proposed data center.
Chambers removed the items related to the Walmart redevelopment from a May 18 City Plan Commission meeting and decided to host the open houses instead. At a June 2 Common Council meeting, he described the meetings as a response to "a lot of misrepresentations of the project."
Chambers said he delayed the meeting because he needed more information about what he called the "computer research facility." He also mentioned that he achieved his goal of getting more people to visit the redevelopment site, even if the meeting wasn't entirely productive.
"It could have been more productive, obviously, but you have individuals who are very passionate," he said. "But we brought over about 100 people to a building that's been closed for 10 years to see what could be of the Midtown Walmart."
Many attendees criticized the venue of the June 10 meeting, pointing out that the warehouse lacked air conditioning and did not allow for clear communication.
"Can we please get an actual town hall in an air-conditioned room in the district with chairs so people can actually stand and comfortably talk, and you can hear your residents out, like you are actually committed to?" asked Samantha Doucas, an organizer with the Party for Socialist Liberation.
While Ted Matkom, the Wisconsin market president and general counsel for Gorman & Co., the developer of the planned affordable housing unit, attended the meeting, the sharpest questions were directed at Chambers and Overhue.
Residents also pointed out that the redevelopment could include a grocery store or clothing retailer, and neither the computing facility nor the self-storage unit would hire enough locals.
A Smaller Data Center Facility
The proposed computing facility, at 19,000 square feet, would be significantly smaller compared to the hyperscale data centers currently under construction.
For example, the first phase of Oracle and OpenAI’s data center in Port Washington spans 672 acres, or 29 million square feet. Microsoft’s facility in Mount Pleasant is set to total 8.7 million square feet, while Meta’s project in Beaver Dam spans 700,000 square feet.
There are already small data centers within city limits. The Potawatomi Business Development Corporation began constructing a two-story, 45,000-square-foot data center at 3135 W. Highland Blvd in 2012, and downtown’s Wells Building also leases some floors to voice and data carriers.
Although a May zoning proposal would ban data centers larger than 60,000 square feet and impose stricter regulations on smaller ones, Chambers has stated that it would not apply to the Walmart redevelopment plan, which was filed before the proposal.
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