St. Joseph County boards, City of Mishawaka, approve Memorandum of Understanding for data center project
ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. -- The Microsoft Data Center project at the old Saint Joe Farms site in Granger is another step closer to breaking ground.
On Tuesday, two St. Joseph County boards, the City of Mishawaka, which will be providing water and sewer services to the project, and Microsoft itself have now approved a Memorandum of Understanding to allow pre-construction work to begin soon at the site.
The County Council will now have the final approval on the MOU, which would allow Microsoft to pay $12.5 million for all of the necessary work at that site before breaking ground later this year.
"Today's actions though, again, very, very front end," says St. Joseph County Economic Development Director Bill Schalliol.
Schalliol says neighbors shouldn't expect to see construction at the site anytime soon, but they might see crews out there as soon as the next several weeks, who are surveying the field: conducting engineering and agricultural studies, assessing property lines for further acquisition, and establishing utility locations.
"We know that there's a couple high pressure gas lines, we know they're in the field somewhere, but we need to know where they are in the field, so we don't build on top of them or break them or something like that," explains Schalliol. "So, there's a lot of that kind of work above ground, below ground that has to be done."
All of this pre-construction work, Schalliol says, needs to be done before a site plan can be finalized and made public.
"It's like, you can't make the car until you figure out how to design it so that's kind of where we still are in the process," Schalliol says.
Some county residents though, are concerned that the MOU got approved without anyone seeing a site plan, which would give neighbors a better picture of what the project will actually look like.
"This was a very important vote, moving forward with a project that most of the people in Granger I've talked to are against," says Steve Francis, a St. Joseph County resident.
"Microsoft has not provided a site plan that's irresponsible on their part, it's irresponsible for the county to move forward without a site plan, we don't know where those buildings are going to go, how big they are going to be."
This comes on top of mounting concerns for energy costs, contamination in the water and land, and sound pollution.
"These guys need to be listening and voting, not what's good for Microsoft," says a Granger resident, Janie Jaronik. "Microsoft is not important to me. The people of our community are, and the future children who have not been born yet, that's important to me."
They urge any other Granger or county residents who are against the project to speak up before it's too late.
"People need to come to these meetings, there will be more of them, and express their concerns and opposition," urges Francis.
"People need to get active," Jaronik says. "Just rubber stamping these things, it's just not right."
The MOU will be on the desk of the council in an upcoming meeting for them to approve.