I hope they don;t pass a moratorium! I think it'd be positive to have more data centers in our cityPeterXCV wrote: ↑8:07 PM - 14 days agoThey could have passed a moratorium. Let's not deny them agency hmm?
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Only if they build it all, if not it's just smoke and mirrors to get people on board.
And we know they won't, because they just want to milk the land for as little investment as necessary.
Can the board of adjustment install a clause that requires them to actually build all of phase II to receive any sort of building permit?
And we know they won't, because they just want to milk the land for as little investment as necessary.
Can the board of adjustment install a clause that requires them to actually build all of phase II to receive any sort of building permit?
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St. Louis is a very complicated City to get any deal done in. Requiring them to spend billions right away to develop the data center, get the Armory renovated into office and get the Iron Hill site developed is a steep ask even for a booming City, especially from a group we haven't heard from yet. As far as the Armory data center, I'm fine with them as long as they get the Armory reopened to office space. For other data centers, place them on the north riverfront. No need for a moratorium, they just need to be done correctly. Outright banning them is not the correct move.
Chris, your comments rolled into a few sentences is the most common sense and pragmatic approach to data centers that the city should be taking on. Anyone can come visit me in Dallas and i will show you a booming city/region with 100s of acres needing to be filled & redevelopedChris Stritzel wrote: ↑10:08 PM - 14 days agoSt. Louis is a very complicated City to get any deal done in. Requiring them to spend billions right away to develop the data center, get the Armory renovated into office and get the Iron Hill site developed is a steep ask even for a booming City, especially from a group we haven't heard from yet. As far as the Armory data center, I'm fine with them as long as they get the Armory reopened to office space. For other data centers, place them on the north riverfront. No need for a moratorium, they just need to be done correctly. Outright banning them is not the correct move.
The city is simply in a tough spot and absolutely needs private property and investment going back on tax rolls. Just read through the permits thread on how the year is going. However, the city is also land rich, infrastructure rich, and has unused water capacity to support today's equivalent of industrial development in which data centers is a part of it. More importantly, the city can't pay for quality of life without revenues and going down the road of over reaction from naysayers & everything w data centers is evils is a huge missed opportunity.
The entire point of a moratorium would be to allow the city to put in regulations that would direct data centers to the north riverfront.Chris Stritzel wrote:St. Louis is a very complicated City to get any deal done in. Requiring them to spend billions right away to develop the data center, get the Armory renovated into office and get the Iron Hill site developed is a steep ask even for a booming City, especially from a group we haven't heard from yet. As far as the Armory data center, I'm fine with them as long as they get the Armory reopened to office space. For other data centers, place them on the north riverfront. No need for a moratorium, they just need to be done correctly. Outright banning them is not the correct move.
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This is a gross simplification of why we shouldn't be building data centers adjacent to booming neighborhoods and transit stations.dredger wrote:Chris, your comments rolled into a few sentences is the most common sense and pragmatic approach to data centers that the city should be taking on. Anyone can come visit me in Dallas and i will show you a booming city/region with 100s of acres needing to be filled & redevelopedChris Stritzel wrote: ↑10:08 PM - 14 days agoSt. Louis is a very complicated City to get any deal done in. Requiring them to spend billions right away to develop the data center, get the Armory renovated into office and get the Iron Hill site developed is a steep ask even for a booming City, especially from a group we haven't heard from yet. As far as the Armory data center, I'm fine with them as long as they get the Armory reopened to office space. For other data centers, place them on the north riverfront. No need for a moratorium, they just need to be done correctly. Outright banning them is not the correct move.
The city is simply in a tough spot and absolutely needs private property and investment going back on tax rolls. Just read through the permits thread on how the year is going. However, the city is also land rich, infrastructure rich, and has unused water capacity to support today's equivalent of industrial development in which data centers is a part of it. More importantly, the city can't pay for quality of life without revenues and going down the road of over reaction from naysayers & everything w data centers is evils is a huge missed opportunity.
I guess we just should hope that in 15 years AI still needs all this physical infrastructure? And we are assuming all these AI companies start making billions in 2029 to pay these hefty property taxes? These are lots of assumptions for an industry that has done nothing but lose money and rely on positive feedback loops.
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https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/ind ... ft-at-door
Regardless of what anyone thinks of data centers, an Intro to Sociology class will tell you that when you remove legal and democratic pathways for the citizenry to achieve what they want as a collective, there will be members of the citizenry who take matters into their own hands and go outside the law to achieve, often delusionally, their goals.
Reality is that our city councils and mayors, all democratically elected, broke the social contact when they all, often unanimously, approve deeply unpopular data center developments. Democracy ceases to exist at that moment and becomes simply a legitimizing mechanism with no actual legitimacy behind it.
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Regardless of what anyone thinks of data centers, an Intro to Sociology class will tell you that when you remove legal and democratic pathways for the citizenry to achieve what they want as a collective, there will be members of the citizenry who take matters into their own hands and go outside the law to achieve, often delusionally, their goals.
Reality is that our city councils and mayors, all democratically elected, broke the social contact when they all, often unanimously, approve deeply unpopular data center developments. Democracy ceases to exist at that moment and becomes simply a legitimizing mechanism with no actual legitimacy behind it.
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Exactly. This is classic St. Louis "Monorail" thinking...if we just pursue this amazing new thing, it will magically solve all of our problems!StlAlex wrote: ↑1:37 AM - 14 days agoI guess we just should hope that in 15 years AI still needs all this physical infrastructure? And we are assuming all these AI companies start making billions in 2029 to pay these hefty property taxes? These are lots of assumptions for an industry that has done nothing but lose money and rely on positive feedback loops.
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Don't be razzle-dazzled by the AI image generator magically rendering all of your urbanist fantasies. The AI/Data Center industry is the greatest capitalist circle jerk in modern history, and every local Muni that goes hard for it will end up with nothing but their d*cks in their hands when reality crashes the party.
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I think we should try to build all sorts of new things. Data centers, apartments, manufacturing facilities, offices, art venues, sports venues. Some of them wont work out and some will. I dont trust anyone who says they know for sure what will be working 15 years from now, especially political leaders.SB in BH wrote: ↑2:55 PM - 13 days agoExactly. This is classic St. Louis "Monorail" thinking...if we just pursue this amazing new thing, it will magically solve all of our problems!StlAlex wrote: ↑1:37 AM - 14 days agoI guess we just should hope that in 15 years AI still needs all this physical infrastructure? And we are assuming all these AI companies start making billions in 2029 to pay these hefty property taxes? These are lots of assumptions for an industry that has done nothing but lose money and rely on positive feedback loops.
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Don't be razzle-dazzled by the AI image generator magically rendering all of your urbanist fantasies. The AI/Data Center industry is the greatest capitalist circle jerk in modern history, and every local Muni that goes hard for it will end up with nothing but their d*cks in their hands when reality crashes the party.
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Nation’s first anti-data center referendum passes in Wisconsin
A Wisconsin city passed a referendum Tuesday targeting data center construction, requiring future large-scale projects that receive tax benefits to secure approval from local voters.
A Wisconsin city passed a referendum Tuesday targeting data center construction, requiring future large-scale projects that receive tax benefits to secure approval from local voters.
Two of these things are not like the others. One of them is a known detriment to the others so purposefully kept away from them. The last one is relatively novel, and the social and environmental effects are partly unknown, but what is known is uniformly bad.mjbais1489 wrote:I think we should try to build all sorts of new things. Data centers, apartments, manufacturing facilities, offices, art venues, sports venues. Some of them wont work out and some will. I dont trust anyone who says they know for sure what will be working 15 years from now, especially political leaders.
I agree on your last point, which is why we shouldn't upend the last twenty years of improvements in our central corridor by sticking data centers wherever developers want them on the promise of future tax revenue and subsequent non-data center development.
Thus a moratorium seems appropriate, though I'd prefer direct voter approval for each project as referenced above in Wisconsin.
I agree, St. Louis is one of those regions that thinks thats somehow the quality of life of the region and economy will magically improve by simply doing nothing and not building anything. There are literally cities that are constantly building and this has greatly improved their city's respective economy. I think St. Louis won't grow significantly again unless we have a big public works project to stimulate the local economy. OKC just passed a local property tax that will build $2.7 B in infrastructure, parks, venues and affordable housing over the next 25 years. We're about 2x the size of OKC. Could you imagine what $5 Billion over the next 25 yearsin St. Louis would do to our economy? It would be a game changer.mjbais1489 wrote: ↑6:17 PM - 13 days agoI think we should try to build all sorts of new things. Data centers, apartments, manufacturing facilities, offices, art venues, sports venues. Some of them wont work out and some will. I dont trust anyone who says they know for sure what will be working 15 years from now, especially political leaders.SB in BH wrote: ↑2:55 PM - 13 days agoExactly. This is classic St. Louis "Monorail" thinking...if we just pursue this amazing new thing, it will magically solve all of our problems!StlAlex wrote: ↑1:37 AM - 14 days agoI guess we just should hope that in 15 years AI still needs all this physical infrastructure? And we are assuming all these AI companies start making billions in 2029 to pay these hefty property taxes? These are lots of assumptions for an industry that has done nothing but lose money and rely on positive feedback loops.
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Don't be razzle-dazzled by the AI image generator magically rendering all of your urbanist fantasies. The AI/Data Center industry is the greatest capitalist circle jerk in modern history, and every local Muni that goes hard for it will end up with nothing but their d*cks in their hands when reality crashes the party.
MSD has been spending that much. We had to be forced to spend it though.
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xAI’s Memphis Water Treatment Plant ‘on an Indefinite Pause’ ⇢
https://512pixels.net/2026/04/xais-memphis-water-treatment-plant-on-an-indefinite-pause/
https://512pixels.net/2026/04/xais-memphis-water-treatment-plant-on-an-indefinite-pause/
Never forget the tube that was going to get us all to Kansas City in 4 minutes.SB in BH wrote: ↑2:55 PM - 13 days agoExactly. This is classic St. Louis "Monorail" thinking...if we just pursue this amazing new thing, it will magically solve all of our problems!StlAlex wrote: ↑1:37 AM - 14 days agoI guess we just should hope that in 15 years AI still needs all this physical infrastructure? And we are assuming all these AI companies start making billions in 2029 to pay these hefty property taxes? These are lots of assumptions for an industry that has done nothing but lose money and rely on positive feedback loops.
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Don't be razzle-dazzled by the AI image generator magically rendering all of your urbanist fantasies. The AI/Data Center industry is the greatest capitalist circle jerk in modern history, and every local Muni that goes hard for it will end up with nothing but their d*cks in their hands when reality crashes the party.
Oooh, good one! And who can forget Aerotropolis, that was going to dump $500M in MO tax subsidies to turn Lambert into a global shipping hub. Then state-senator, now real Senator Eric Schmidt was majorly sad that his "China hub" idea didn't work out. I guess COMMUNIST China wasn't totally evil in 2011. I wonder what changed?!? Only the particulars...robertn42 wrote: ↑11:24 PM - 9 days agoNever forget the tube that was going to get us all to Kansas City in 4 minutes.SB in BH wrote: ↑2:55 PM - 13 days agoExactly. This is classic St. Louis "Monorail" thinking...if we just pursue this amazing new thing, it will magically solve all of our problems!StlAlex wrote: ↑1:37 AM - 14 days agoI guess we just should hope that in 15 years AI still needs all this physical infrastructure? And we are assuming all these AI companies start making billions in 2029 to pay these hefty property taxes? These are lots of assumptions for an industry that has done nothing but lose money and rely on positive feedback loops.
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Don't be razzle-dazzled by the AI image generator magically rendering all of your urbanist fantasies. The AI/Data Center industry is the greatest capitalist circle jerk in modern history, and every local Muni that goes hard for it will end up with nothing but their d*cks in their hands when reality crashes the party.
“XAI has invested substantially in this, this project. I mean, you’ve driven by the site, you’ve seen that this was not blowing smoke up anyone’s skirt,” Carroll said. “We have been going at this project full bore. So this is not something where xAI promised something and didn’t intend to carry through.”BarryGlick wrote: ↑8:17 PM - 9 days agoxAI’s Memphis Water Treatment Plant ‘on an Indefinite Pause’ ⇢
https://512pixels.net/2026/04/xais-memphis-water-treatment-plant-on-an-indefinite-pause/
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaa. Its laugh or cry and I always choose laughter.
It doesn't matter what they "intended," it matters what they did. They blew a massive amount of smoke up Memphis's skirt knowing full well if the delusional bets xAI has placed on AI/Data Centers doesn't play out, it can ditch the stupid water plant with no repercussions and leave the Memphis Rubes to deal with it while the data center keeps running.
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Warrenton officials approve 75% personal property tax abatement for multi-billion dollar data center project
https://www.firstalert4.com/2026/04/15/warrenton-officials-approve-75-personal-property-tax-abatement-multi-billion-dollar-data-center-project/
Recently driving to the Warren county courthouse from STL the economic (poorer) difference from St, Charles county to Warren county is stark
https://www.firstalert4.com/2026/04/15/warrenton-officials-approve-75-personal-property-tax-abatement-multi-billion-dollar-data-center-project/
Recently driving to the Warren county courthouse from STL the economic (poorer) difference from St, Charles county to Warren county is stark
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Why would a poor rural county give a multi billion dollar project a tax break? The permission to build IS the break.
Because they're desperate and the data center developers know it.TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 wrote: ↑6:49 PM - 7 days agoWhy would a poor rural county give a multi billion dollar project a tax break? The permission to build IS the break.
From the article: "Crusoe said it needed the abatement to attract one of the large users like Amazon, Google or Microsoft."
The Warrenton City peasants will subsidize the construction of an environmentally destructive monolith, who's business plan consists of leasing the compute to non-taxpaying corporate parasites purposefully engineering the disintegration of human civilization. No, I'm not being hyperbolic, it's really that stupid/evil.
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/bus ... -top-story
Ferguson considering $1.5 billion in tax breaks and bonds for a proposed $22 billion overhaul of the former Emerson headquarters into a data center and tech hub.
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Ferguson considering $1.5 billion in tax breaks and bonds for a proposed $22 billion overhaul of the former Emerson headquarters into a data center and tech hub.
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Public opinion is negative on AI, which could have major implications for OpenAI and Anthropic as they look to go public.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/public-opinion-ai-data-centers-anthropic-openai-ipo.html
A reason why data centers are focusing on Missouri?
https://coloradonewsline.com/2026/04/08/data-center-water-use/
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/public-opinion-ai-data-centers-anthropic-openai-ipo.html
A reason why data centers are focusing on Missouri?
https://coloradonewsline.com/2026/04/08/data-center-water-use/
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... -top-story
Ferguson approves $1.5 billion across 15 years of tax breaks for a $22 billion date center redevelopment of the Emerson campus.
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Ferguson approves $1.5 billion across 15 years of tax breaks for a $22 billion date center redevelopment of the Emerson campus.
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