Over 100 people were on hand Monday night in Harwood, North Dakota. The developer of a proposed A-I Data Center held a town hall meeting to talk about their plan. Reporter Todd McDonald was there and filed this report...
It was the first public meeting surrounding the project. The plans for the center were announced earlier this month. Blake Henkey is mayor of the city of Harwood.
The town has about 900 residents and is just north of Fargo city limits. Henkey says while the subject is generating a lot of buzz in the community, he entered the night with the mindset of learning more about the data center and what it could bring to his town.
"It's a proposed project at this point and I think they're going to have a presentation that explains a lot of it and so I don't really have any expectations."
Henkey says when it comes to that buzz, there's been a good deal of excitement and naturally some opposition.
"You know, the Harwood citizens have been real good, honestly. I mean, they're more curious than anything else.
It's citizens of other communities that have been, quite frankly, pretty nasty. Vague threats and, you know, how could we do this and so on and so forth. There's really been Fargo and Moorhead residents that have made, well, it's been only Fargo and Moorhead residents that have made those kind of complaints."
The company behind the project is Applied Digital. The company also owns and operates data centers in Jamestown and Ellendale. Nick Phillips is Executive Vice President of Applied Digital. Phillips says if the plan gets the green light from city leaders, the $3 billion center would include a two-building campus to be located on a 900-acre plot of land. Organizers are hoping to have it located south and east of Harwood in order to take advantage of land inside the flood diversion protection area. Mayor Henkey says he understands concerns about the project, but he wants to make sure things are kept in perspective.
"We haven't voted on anything yet. That's happening, like I mentioned, it's happening September 2nd at a regularly scheduled meeting. So we haven't agreed to rezone this property. We haven't approved a building permit. That may or may not happen."
Officials say if the city does approve the project, they're hoping to break ground sometime in September.
For Prairie Public, I'm Todd McDonald.