Riverfront Data Center In McKinley Park Revives Expansion Plans But Faces Delay

MCKINLEY PARK — A data center along the Chicago River is reviving its expansion plan — but it’s facing obstacles from the city.

The City Council first approved QTS Data Center’s expansion plans in 2024. Those plans call for adding a three-story building to its data center at 2800 S. Ashland Ave., among other changes, city records show. The company didn’t immediately move on the plans despite the approval.

But now, QTS Data Center, 2800 S. Ashland Ave., is set to expand its Chicago data center campus “to meet growing customer demand in the region,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement this month.

QTS’ data center is at the former site of the Sun-Times printing plant along the south branch of the Chicago River. The plans approved by the city called for maintaining an existing building and adding a three-story building adjacent to the river. An existing power station would remain.

The company’s expansion plans also include adding new parking islands with planters, a welcome garden with bike racks and outdoor seating along the river, and improved pedestrian access to the river, city records show. An improved crosswalk on Ashland Avenue that connects the Canalport Riverwalk Park to the Canals Origin Park was also proposed.

But the permit to expand this facility has been voided because of inactivity exceeding 120 days, Nefsa’Hyatt Brown, a Department of Buildings spokesperson, said in an emailed statement Tuesday.

That’s put a pause on plans to finally pursue the expansion.

And some are raising questions about if the city should allow the changes to go forward at all.

Across the United States in recent years, people have begun fiercely pushing back on the construction of data centers, with many citing concerns like the environmental impact such centers can have. Between May 2024 and March 2025, $64 billion of large-scale data center projects were blocked or delayed due to local public opposition, according to a report by Data Center Watch.

Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th) said in an emailed statement that “the city should be able to demonstrate that the public benefits are proportional to the long-term demands these facilities place on our infrastructure” before the expansion moves forward.

In Chicago, a city working group created to study the impacts of data centers recently presented recommendations to create new regulations, including recommending city officials create “new data center-specific environmental standards” and a mechanism for reviewing, monitoring and enforcing operational impacts, according to a report published this month.

Currently, the city’s review of building permits does not include these, a city spokesperson said.

Ramirez said she remains “concerned that as data centers continue to expand across Chicago, we still lack the data and transparency needed to fully understand their long-term effects on our electrical grid, water resources, air quality, noise and surrounding communities.”

“Taxpayers should not be left covering the costs of future upgrades to our electrical grid, water systems or environmental oversight,” Ramirez said.

QTS officials did not respond to Block Club’s request for comment and questions about if the company will reapply for the permits needed to begin its expansion.

Questions about the data center expanding first emerged when the owner of the Damen Silos site illegally built a parking lot to lease to construction crews working on a nearby data center.

QTS turned its current site into a data center after buying it from the Sun-Times in 2014, when the city lifted conditions it had set on the Sun-Times to use the property as a printing plant, city records show. At the time, the company said it planned to turn the site into a multi-tenant data storage facility and build two more facilities in the next 10 years, according to city records.