The Aurora City Council is poised to approve plans for expansion of Cyrus One, a large data center on Aurora’s far East Side.
Aldermen will vote next week on conditional use permits, and a preliminary plan and plat, for some expansion of the company’s current campus at Eola and Diehl roads, as well as new construction on a second campus just to the north of the current one.
“The existing campus has been wildly successful,” said Russ Whitaker, a Naperville-based attorney representing Cyrus One, at Tuesday night’s City Council Committee of the Whole meeting. “The new building was leased up quickly.”
That new building was behind the original Cyrus One building, purchased by the company in 2015. The data center has many clients, the most notable Chicago’s Mercantile Exchange.
The company is looking to add a 300-foot tower just to the north of its current 350-foot tower along Eola Road.
“At this point we are out of space on that tower,” Whitaker said. “So we need another tower.”
But the expansion does not stop there. Cyrus One is looking to expand with two more buildings and two more towers at 2725 Bilter Road, which is south of Bilter, west of Eola and north of Interstate 88. The property is along an exit ramp from I-88 to Diehl Road.
The two new towers on the new site would be 350 feet tall. The new development would be in two buildings, one 411,000 square feet and the second 150,000 square feet.
Most of the building space would be for data center servers, although the front of the main building would include a lobby and some office space. That part of the building would include some glass to add light to the look of the building, officials said.
The new buildings would be on one of the last pieces of property left in the Butterfield Planned Development district, which was approved in the 1970s. It was at one time considered for hotel development, but city officials have said the data center use fits with the area. Not only does Cyrus One have its facility already nearby, the new site would be next to the Edge development, another data center project.
City officials have said the new development would bring a lot of revenue to the city, as well as to other taxing bodies. Not only would it bring in property tax money for all the taxing bodies, it would pay utility taxes. The current Cyrus One site generates about $90,000 a month in utility taxes, and company officials estimate the new site would generate about the same.
The plan also includes detention basin development and a large landscaping plan, said Cyrus One officials.
slord@tribpub.com
