Data Center Community Workshops: What To Expect
When news broke that the buyer of the former Star Tribune printing facility was a data center developer, the volunteers on the North Loop Neighborhood Association board knew there would be a lot of questions and input from the community.
Dr. Fernando Burga, who volunteers on the NLNA Planning + Zoning Committee as a member, offered a way to harness all that input into a productive engagement process that could be useful for the neighborhood, city leadership and the potential (the sale is not final) developer, Legacy Investing.
Dr. Burga is a U of M urban planning academic and North Loop resident who is a senior research fellow at the Minnesota Design Center (MDC), which is the research arm of the U’s College of Design. Each year, the MDC chooses two high-profile topics to carry out an intensive week of research. This year, one of those topics happened to be data centers in urban environments, and they had already planned to develop community workshops this week on the topic. Data Centers are emerging from rural to urban Minnesota and they are presenting new challenges for designers, planners and policy makers.
Upon learning that the North Loop could potentially have a data center, the MDC graciously agreed to collaborate with the NLNA and consider the Star Tribune site as a case study for their research and engagement efforts.
What to Expect
Each night’s workshop will look a little different. Attending every night isn’t required, but people are welcome to do so.
Through various mapping, poster table and interactive design exercises, participants will work individually and in groups to describe what community means to them, articulate their concerns about data center impacts and imagine other possibilities for the Star Tribune property.
Developer Will Present Wednesday Night
Legacy Investing will present their data center proposal via Zoom on Wednesday night at 6pm, as part of the NLNA’s regularly scheduled Planning + Zoning (P+Z) Committee meeting. Representatives from the firm will not be present for Monday, Tuesday or Thursday workshops.
You can read what Managing Partner Daniel English told us about the project in this Q&A session we conducted a few days ago.
Legacy’s presentation on Wednesday will be focused on their specific Land Use Application, which would convert the printing press building itself into a data center. Uses for the rest of the land on the property will not be discussed.
As in all P+Z meetings, committee members will discuss and vote on the Land Use Application. The full NLNA Board will vote on P+Z’s recommendation at their August 26 meeting. NLNA votes are then shared with the City Planning Commission, which also considers the Land Use Application.
NLNA Position
The NLNA does not yet have a position on this proposal, as we will be learning details of the project along with the neighborhood and having our own questions and concerns addressed.
When a property is sold from one private owner to another, the City has the ultimate say in whether or not the proposed development adheres to City rules. So neighborhood associations can’t block developments, but they can influence them.
That’s why participation in these workshops is crucial, and we look forward to hearing from you this week.
— Mary Binkley, NLNA President