Hyperscale Data Centers are interested in coming to Cherryvale.
At Monday's Cherryvale City Council Meeting, Jason Laurent from the Bevlaurent LLC addressed the Council regarding data center companies that are interested in building on the 65 acre site north of town that his company is acting as the broker for.
Laurent was not able to disclose the name of the companies interested, but says there are only about eight companies that develop data centers of this size, which typically contain a minimum of 5,000 servers, and could have some similarities to the current data center in Pryor, Oklahoma. Laurent says the data center would bring in about 300 permanent jobs to Cherryvale and an estimated revenue of $10 million per year in property and consumption taxes.
One of the Council's first questions to Laurent was about water consumption. He says the project could start at 1 million gallons a day, ramping up to 6 million gallons a day.
The water would come from Big Hill Lake and would involve up to two 16-inch water lines to be installed from the lake to the site in Cherryvale where it would be processed. Laurent says this “open loop” system gives higher efficiency and that the water is evaporated, minus the salt and any treatment chemicals which are then re-introduced to the system. Laurent also says there would be on-site generation of electricity, made in part through the mass-production of hydrogen.
Laurent's main goal right now is to establish a baseline development agreement with the city, then approach prospective companies to work out things like noise level, water consumption and electricity use.
Cherryvale City Attorney Seth Jones says there are additional rules will need to be put in place even if the city allows the zoning of a data center.
Laurent says he thinks a project like this is important not only on a local level, but also on a global one.
Council Member Norman Johnson says he thinks it's important to gather as much information as possible before making a final decision.
Laurent says he thinks the data center and the community will both work well together.
While no vote on the matter was taken, the Council agreed to allow Laurent to work with City Attorney Seth Jones on a development agreement draft. An agreement with a much smaller data center proposal for the same site fell through earlier this year.
