The plan for one of the largest data centers in the state appears on its way to city approval after a 7-1 vote of endorsement from the Joliet Plan Commission this week.

The commission recommended approval of the 795-acre project with few questions despite more than four hours of public comment, most of which was against the plan.

“This meeting feels more like a formality than a discussion with your residents,” Candice Quinerly, one of the opponents, said to the commission.

The proposed Joliet Technology Center now goes to the City Council for a final vote on March 16.

Roughly 80 people spoke at the Plan Commission meeting. Nine spoke in favor of the project.

The debate centered at times over whether the proposed Joliet Technology Center is too promising to pass up or too problematic to pass approval.

Data center developers promise more than 7,000 construction jobs, 700 high-paying permanent jobs, and $310 million in property taxes over 30 years.

“There hasn’t been a job like this since they built the Braidwood Nuclear Station in the early ‘80s,” Doc Gregory, president of the Will & Grundy Counties Building Trades Council, told the commission.

Gregory said about 300 local union construction workers now are traveling out of the area to work on data centers.

“We need a project like this in our backyard,” he said.

That’s just where opponents say it shouldn’t be.

“The people south of Joliet, the people of south Will County – we’ve just been under siege," Tim Shanahan of Manhattan told the commission.

Joliet would annex the 795 acres, an area of farmland located roughly at Rowell Avenue and Bernhard Road on a site south of the Chicagoland Speedway, for the data center.

The annexation would extend the city boundaries toward Manhattan, as a previous annexation for the NorthPoint Development warehouse project, which also faced intense opposition, moved the Joliet city limits towards Elwood.

The industrial expansion of Joliet is eroding a rural lifestyle for people like Shanahan.

“Our way of life has been under siege for some time,” he said.

Unlike the NorthPoint project, the Joliet Technology Center faces opposition from people not necessarily living close to the future data center but opposed to what it represents.

Many opponents to the plan noted that it will help fuel the development of artificial intelligence, which they said poses problems for the future.

“How many jobs over the next 30 years is artificial intelligence going to take away?” David Kump asked.

Others pointed to issues of electricity demand, water usage and noise that have been linked to data centers.

A state report issued in December said Illinois faces an electricity shortage in the coming years, driven in large part by the addition of data centers.

The Joliet Technology Center, according to a city staff report, would use 1,800 megawatts of electricity a year.

“This is a massive project, and the amount of energy to be used is not to be trifled with,” Chris Carlson, an electrical engineer, told the commission.

Carlson said the proposed data center would contribute to “a new energy crisis” and one of that is being created “for what is perceived to be a need in the future.”

Proponents and even some opponents said Joliet would not be able to escape the impact on electricity bills, whether or not the Joliet Technology Center is built. If the city rejected the project, some form of it would be built elsewhere, they said, and have the same impact on local electricity bills.

City staff and the developers say the electricity demand for the data center will be self-contained and should not impact energy customers around the Joliet Technology Center.

“There really is no way for that cost to be foisted, or moved over, to other ComEd energy consumers,” Mark Pruitt with The Power Bureau, a consultant for the developers, told the commission.

With the number of issues under consideration, some opponents said they just needed more time to understand the project.

“My head is exploding with all this information,” Gianna Barone of Joliet said.

“Are we going to be safe?” Barone asked. “Can we get some guarantees? Can we get something in writing that says our electric bills aren’t going to go up?”

More time is not likely to be granted.

The city, after putting the project on hold in October, put it on a fast track for approval in less than a month.

The Joliet Technology Center was the only item on the agenda for the special Plan Commission meeting first announced on Feb. 20 in a legal ad posted in The Herald-News.

On March 16, the project will be one of many items at a combined City Council meeting, which will combine the usual workshop meeting with the regular council meeting in which the council votes.

David Silverman, attorney for the developers, noted that city staff for the past five months have been asking questions to prepare the city for the data center votes.

“We provided the answers,” Silverman said. “The city has provided the answers. We think it’s time to move on to the council.”

Those questions and answers, however, took place outside of public view. The city first provided its conclusions about the project on Tuesday, when it released the agenda for the Plan Commission meeting on the city website.

Some objectors to the project said they just wanted more time to figure it out.

“I think a lot of us here want more transparency,” Mary Simeone of Joliet told the commission. “We want you to take your time considering this project.”