Story and photos by Brian Quinn/For Video News Service
The Town Planning Board got specifics on the site plan for an $11.181 billion, 2.2-million square foot data center project on WNY Science & Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (STAMP) property but is still waiting for the complete application from the developer, STREAM U.S. Data Centers.
The Planning Board will have a public hearing at some point, but that date hasn’t been set. Monday night’s meeting was a joint Planning Board and Town Board meeting.
The proposed project would include three data center buildings. It would be on a 60-acre North Campus and 30-acre South Campus at STAMP.
The data centers would operate 24/7 with servers in data halls. It would support internet, cloud services and data storage and processing for companies and institutions. Electrical systems would bring power to the buildings. Backup generators would provide power during outages.
STREAM U.S. Data Centers Design Manager Colm Curran explains the site plan to Town Planners at the Alabama Fire Department on Monday evening.
STREAM U.S. Data Centers Design Manager Colm Curran said cool water would be pumped from rooftop chillers to cool the air in the rooms with the servers.
“Each of these buildings are identical. They’re all the same size, height, length,” he said. “The equipment within them will be the same.”
Town Attorney Mark Boylan said no public comments would be taken during the meeting, though residents tried to ask questions during the session.
Among the comments and questions from the Planning Board was Lorna Klotzbach, talking about how the location of the proposed project.
Planning Board member Lorna Klotzbach (middle) asking a question. On her left and right, respectively, are board members Brett Naas and Bill McGorray..
“This is a very rural area – agricultural, wetlands, lots of wildlife. Do you have any experience with how these data centers affect wildlife?” she asked as community members cheered and applauded.
“Come in, tell us. Tell us how everybody’s safe,” a woman said.
Curran said STREAM has built data centers in rural areas.
“We have multiple data centers that are in similar locations,” he said as people in the crowd asked “Where?”
“We have not had concerns about us on any wildlife issues that I’m aware of, anyway, across any of our projects,” he said. “We do have industry-leading experts … that way, we have a lot of sustainable partners in our designers and our architects as well. They have their own high standards that they work to. We listen to them.”
Tonawanda Seneca Nation resident Melissa Smith holding signs in opposition to the project
Karolos Keranis, project manager for Gensler, a project architect, said an acoustic barrier would block the view of chillers in the roofs of the buildings and there would be noise canceling devices for the noises the chillers produce.
Global engineering firm Ramboll Senior Managing Consultant Kevin Peterson said he understands the concern over noise and data centers.
“The data center industry, as a whole, has not done itself any favors … I’m not talking about STREAM, but with some people within this industry that have not done responsible designs,” he said.
Of the STREAM project, he said, “We’ve been through several iterations of design and modeling, and I’m confident that this is a responsible design. It’s something that I can put my name on.”
Michael Van Flue, civil engineer with Bowman Consulting, civil engineer for the project, spoke, in part, about traffic analysis.
“Most of the traffic generated by this site will just be the employees. That’s passenger vehicles. They’ll be heavily concentrated around shift-change times,” he said. “When all three are complete, that will be about 195 peak-hour trips in the a.m. As far as heavy traffic, not a lot. We anticipate two to three deliveries per day.”