City changes code to allow for data centers, expects one to locate in Rochelle in coming years

‘You're talking hundreds of millions of dollars in investment in land, buildings and equipment’

By Jeff Helfrich, Managing Editor
Posted 3/28/25

At its March 10 meeting, the Rochelle City Council unanimously approved an ordinance amending its zoning code to allow for language on data centers and data warehousing. 

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City changes code to allow for data centers, expects one to locate in Rochelle in coming years

‘You're talking hundreds of millions of dollars in investment in land, buildings and equipment’

Posted

ROCHELLE — At its March 10 meeting, the Rochelle City Council unanimously approved an ordinance amending its zoning code to allow for language on data centers and data warehousing. 

Data center developments have become more prevalent recently and the city desired to be proactive in its zoning usage and requirements. The changes made data centers a permissible use in I-1 light industry, I-2 general industry and I-3 heavy industry zoning districts and defined data centers in the city’s code. The change would streamline a potential data center’s development process and developers will now not be required to go before the city’s planning & zoning commission and council for a special use permit. 

“We made that change to our code because we have data centers that are looking at locating in Rochelle and we want to make sure we streamline the process and ensure that they're able to actually locate in industrially-zoned areas,” City Manager Jeff Fiegenschuh said. “We want to make it as easy to develop in Rochelle as possible. The data center industry is exploding right now and there's a lot of interest in our area because of our proximity to power transmission lines and our substations. It just seemed to make sense to ensure that our code allowed for it. Our code shouldn't hinder data centers in Rochelle.”

Fiegenschuh said March 27 that the city has had discussions with five data center developers about potentially locating in Rochelle, two of which are “extremely interested.”

A data center is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. DeKalb recently saw the addition of a 2.3 million square feet, over $1 billion Meta (Facebook) data center. Land near the Byron Nuclear Plant was also recently rezoned to industrial use with eyes on a data center development. 

Rochelle Municipal Utilities, which is owned by the city, would provide electricity, water and other utilities to a potential data center. 

“You're talking hundreds of millions of dollars in capital investment in land, buildings and equipment,” Fiegenschuh said. “The thing I like about data centers is their large, consistent electric load. They typically run 24/7. That's a nice base load of power. You know they're going to be using power all the time rather than at specific times. That allows us to know what we're dealing with when we're buying power to sell them. They do employ people, but the largest part of it is the investment and property taxes they generate for school districts and other taxing bodies. There's significant economic benefits.”

Fiegenschuh believes a data center locating in Rochelle in the future would grow the city’s economic base and benefit RMU long term. The city manager did not disclose where potential data center developers are looking at locating, but industrial-zoned areas are in the east and west portions of the city’s southern corridors. 

Along with power, data centers use a large amount of water for their operations. An agreement with a data center could include on-site renewable energy and gas generation so generation could be done behind the meter to reduce the stress on RMU’s system and provide backup generation needed. A sustainability plan for water use could also be part of a development agreement. 

“I know some data centers capture rainwater and utilize that,” Fiegenschuh said. “That's a huge issue. Water is a very valuable commodity and resource and we're very blessed to be where we are because we have significant water in the aquifer below us. It's not just power, it's water usage and making sure they have sustainable practices in place to reduce their water consumption. The technology is changing with new data centers and they're using less water than they have before and I think that will continue to improve.”

The City of Rochelle has previous experience with large development agreements, its most recent work being Zekelman Industries, the largest steel pipe and tube manufacturer in North America, which located in Rochelle in recent years and made a capital investment of over $130 million. The city and RMU also had to work to meet Zekelman Industries’ power needs, which it would have to do for a data center. 

Fiegenschuh said working with a data center developer would be “equally complex” compared to the work done to bring in Zekelman Industries. The most complex part of the work would be the city and RMU purchasing power to sell to a data center. 

“Under contract we only have about 45-50 megawatts of power now,” Fiegenschuh said. “For more, we'd have to procure another contract or buy it on the market. If they come here, we'll need assurances because we're going to go out and buy that power. Once we do get a deal, we'll have to time it correctly so we know that the customer will be paying for what we purchased whether they use it or not. All of these companies have been amenable to that. The other complexity is the amount of power they use. Zekelman Industries added about 10 megawatts. We have a data center looking at locating here that would add 90 megawatts.”

If RMU were to add a power amount like 90 megawatts to its system, Fiegenschuh that would almost max it out on power and it wouldn’t be able to take on any more large-scale expansions until it worked with ComEd to upsize transmission lines coming into town and built another substation.  

“If you have a guaranteed 90-megawatt customer going forward for 10+ years, we'll have the revenue to be able to make those upgrades,” Fiegenschuh said. “We think of Zekelman Industries as a large power user, but these data centers are in another league now. This could be a very large undertaking for us to work on in the next few years. But we have a great team in place working on it. In the next five years, people can expect to see a data center of some size somewhere in Rochelle.”