Amid ongoing controversy over data centers, Warren County officials recently heard a presentation from yet another company involved in developing the facilities.
Dan Curry, vice president of data center development with Oppidan Connect Data Centers, met with the Warren County Commission July 28. Oppidan Connect has not acquired land in Warren County, Curry said, and he was simply there to provide information.
Minneapolis-based Oppidan, founded in 1991, has around 20 data center projects either currently ongoing or completed in the last year or two, Curry said.
Curry has been working in the data center industry since 2011. “That’s back when people thought secondary markets like Minneapolis and St. Louis were going to be the next big thing in data centers because everybody and all these Fortune 500 end users were going to go out and build their own projects. And that never really materialized because cloud came around,” he said.
“Cloud service providers like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, just had a much more efficient, much easier product to use for, you know, your local hospital, potentially, your local bank, or a Fortune 500 end user than to stand up and operate their own data center.”
The situation has shifted, however, with the rise of artificial intelligence, as cloud service providers have less available capacity. Oppidan has increasingly been developing smaller “edge sites” rather than the largest “hyperscale” data centers, Curry said.
“Our focus these days really is these sub-50-megawatt-size projects, so much smaller than what you guys have seen in the news,” he said, adding that these buildings are typically 100,000 to 150,000 square feet or less.
These smaller projects generally serve one of two purposes. Some are “mission critical” data centers for "enterprise users” like banks and healthcare systems that can’t afford to lose power or access to their data even momentarily, Curry said.
Others, meanwhile, “serve a specific purpose for our client where they need to be placed in specific areas around an entire metro region to serve that market and to improve the performance of, you know, the everyday consumer’s technology,” he said.
“So the apps we use on our phone, they’re set up to be run through specific data centers in a local region so that they perform better, and then they run back to larger sites like what you may have seen through different developments in the St. Louis region or around the country.”
Presiding Commissioner Joe Gildehaus said he had not previously heard of “edge site” data centers. Asked by Commissioner Matt Flake whether the whole data center industry was moving toward edge sites rather than larger facilities, Curry said it was more of a niche that his company is pursuing.
“I mean, the needs these days are so large and there’s so much capital chasing projects that a lot of developers are focused on these huge campuses. They’re going to end up going where they can find areas that support the project and actually have power, because they’re more and more difficult to get, especially at that size,” Curry said.
He added that he was “kind of skeptical, personally, as to how many of those can potentially happen in the St. Louis region.”
Amazon and Google data centers are currently under development in Montgomery County, while Crusoe Energy Systems is working on a project in Warrenton.
Steve Etcher, a consultant with the Greater Warren County Economic Development Council, who introduced Curry at the meeting, told commissioners that “as you’re contemplating and reviewing your current ordinances,” Curry and his team “would be a great resource to tap into.”
As far as other trends he’s seeing, Curry said, “obviously, the industry has taken note, I think, of water usage and is more focused on using closed-loop cooling systems,” instead of less efficient evaporative cooling systems.
Asked by Planning & Zoning Administrator Bill Roemer how much water it would take to fill a typical closed-loop cooling system for a 50-megawatt data center, however, Curry said he had “no idea.”
“There’s a lot of specific niches of expertise in the industry, so mine is not in mechanical engineering,” he said. “If we have a project for you, we will let you know.”
While Oppidan doesn’t have land under control in Warren County, “we do have end-user clients, which are asking us for projects around the country,” Curry said.
“I know your company is probably looking for a site, and there’s other companies looking around for sites I’m sure,” said Flake.
“I mean, we’ve all heard some of the public meetings and rumors, and I just hope everybody lets us know what they’re doing and what they’re thinking. That way we can be fully informed of what’s going on before the process has, you know, gone on for a while.”
Following Curry’s presentation, several members of the public spoke, mostly opposing data center development.
Rene Lambert moved to rural Warren County because “I wanted a place that I could bring my grandkids, like my grandfather did, take them on walks in the woods, teach them what kind of trees there are, show them the deer, how to treat the animals,” she said.
“I see these data centers as snake oil salesmen that come here to try to sell us things that will destroy our life, or our lifestyle, I should say.”
Foristell Alderman Dudley Adkins said he attended the meeting to listen and learn.
“It’s really important to me to figure out what we need to control and what we can control,” he said.
Nathan Knuffman said he is concerned for the future of the area.
“If they’re going to keep building these data centers, what’s going to happen if they continue to take our water?” he asked. “What’s going to happen to the livestock, the farmers, the people that provide our food, and things of that nature?”
Jess Sutton, meanwhile, noted that “there’s already data center-owned property in the county.”
“So is this related?” she asked. “And the person that they have set up to handle those issues with the community is related to Mr. Etcher himself. So those are some concerns that I would hope that you would look at going into the future, and we don’t repeat the same mistakes that the city’s making right now, or at least learn from them.”
“We’re trying to learn from everybody,” said Gildehaus.
