A petitioner for an unknown company wants to build a major data center on 560 acres in DeKalb just south of another 500-acre data center campus owned by Meta.

The development is proposed under a code name, “Project Vector,” according to a posted public notice. If approved, Project Vector would have four data center campus buildings and two electrical substations, plans show.

The data center campus would be built on about 560 acres of land on both east and west sides of Illinois State Route 23, north of Keslinger Road and west of Crego Road, according to the notice.

Northern Illinois University’s central campus in DeKalb is 756 acres. Hopkins Park is 32 acres. Under the proposal, Project Vector – which could fit about 17.5 Hopkins parks – would have fewer buildings than Meta’s data center, but sit on more land.

The petitioner is listed as JJK 343 LLC, also known as ChicagoWest Business Center, according to the public notice. ChicagoWest brands itself as “DeKalb’s premier business park,” city documents show.

“The development will continue to offer significant long-term benefits to the community with expanded tax revenue, technology paying jobs and infrastructure upgrades to the regional area,” a letter from ChicagoWest to the city states.

Little else is known so far about the proposed data center campus or the company behind it.

A public hearing set for 6 p.m. on Dec. 1 at the DeKalb Public Library, 309 Oak St., is expected to be the first time the project is presented to the public for review. The petition to rezone and annex hundreds of acres of mostly farmland requires DeKalb City Council approval, also.

ChicagoWest manager Jerry Krusinski, DeKalb city manager Bill Nicklas, city planner Dan Olson, and city engineer John Laskowski planned to meet Oct. 29 about the petition, according to the notice.

ChicagoWest owns most of the land in question and paid millions for it, according to DeKalb County property records.

About 43 acres on the proposed site is owned by Castle Bank and Trust, sale listings show.

More than 270 acres of the site land was bought by ChicagoWest as recently as Sept. 9, property records show. That includes: about 71 acres along Route 23 sold for $2.6 million; about 48.5 acres along Route 23 sold for $1.4 million; about 80 acres along Crego Road sold for $1.5 million. On Sept. 25, 2024, ChicagoWest bought 80 acres off Keslinger Road for $3.6 million.

All that land is included in the data center site plans.

It’s not uncommon for corporations seeking approval for public business – including permit applications, zoning requests and tax incentives – to keep industry details close to the chest. Before Meta was announced, the data center was called “Project Ventus” in public records and meetings.

Often, the public is not privy to further information due to nondisclosure agreements signed by city officials.

Major industrial development concentrated in recent years on land near Interstate 88 has brought the likes of Amazon, Ferrara Candy Co., and Kraft Heinz to DeKalb. Those projects were first brought to the public eye under codenames, too.

Before social media giant Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp – came to DeKalb, developers spent months petitioning the city and surrounding governing bodies. In that case, the petitioner was ChicagoWest Business Center, acting on behalf of Meta.

Meta’s $1 billion data center on DeKalb’s south side came online in November 2023. It spans five buildings at 2.3 million square feet.

Gov. JB Pritzker, who visited DeKalb for the opening, at the time said Illinois was the “hub of data center expansion.” In 2019, Pritzker signed a bill that offered tax incentives specifically to data centers that build in Illinois.

The neighboring city of Yorkville just approved a 1,037-acre data center development that will feature 18 two-story data center warehouses and three electrical substations. A 795-acre data center that plans for 12 three-story buildings is proposed in Joliet.