Local
Forest County Potawatomi Plans 25% Data Center Expansion in Milwaukee Despite Citywide Moratorium
The Forest County Potawatomi tribe wants to grow its near-capacity data center at 33rd and State streets from 46,000 to 59,000 square feet, arguing a pre-existing zoning agreement exempts it from Milwaukee's new moratorium on data center construction and expansion. The Common Council must still approve the project after Plan Commission review.
The Forest County Potawatomi tribe is moving to expand its data center near 33rd and State streets in Milwaukee by roughly 25 percent, even as a citywide moratorium on new data centers and expansions remains in effect.
The proposal would enlarge the facility from 46,000 square feet to 59,000 square feet by building on the tribe's adjacent lot. Ryan Brooks, general manager of Potawatomi Data Holdings, said the center is nearly full, with only one of its server suites still holding any capacity.
"It's the last available space. That's why we're starting to talk about expansion," Brooks said during a tour of the facility.
The center operates around the clock and serves about 70 private companies along with the State of Wisconsin. Brooks described it as a backup site handling everything from state parks stickers to tax records, chosen on the open market for its reliability. He said data stored there is both accessible and secure.
Alderman Robert Bauman, who lives nearby, said the facility has run for more than a decade without generating complaints. "They produced a great product. I mean, the building completely blends in with the neighborhood," Bauman said.
According to Brooks, the facility includes environmentally conscious features: a closed-loop cooling system that avoids consuming drinking water, indoor backup generators designed to limit noise, and power purchased directly from We Energies. He said the backup generators have never been needed in 13 years of operation because the site has never lost power.
"Usually that's why people are here. They're doing some sort of online business, or online transactions, and they want to be up all the time. And that's what the building enables," Brooks said.
The expansion's path around the moratorium rests on a negotiated zoning agreement reached years ago. Bauman said the moratorium the council passed does not apply to properties covered by detailed plan developments, a form of negotiated zoning the city struck with the Forest County Potawatomi long ago.
The project is not assured, however. The Common Council must still approve the plans following a review by the Plan Commission. The tribe said it remains in the planning stages and does not yet have specific plans to share.
For scale, the four Vantage Data Center server buildings under construction in Port Washington are about 60 times the square footage of the Potawatomi facility, even if the expansion proceeds.