Milwaukee’s plan commission is holding a public hearing Monday afternoon about a proposed data center project.
It would occupy a portion of a long-vacant Walmart within Midtown – a shopping district located northeast of Capitol Drive and 60th Street.
The project has raised concerns among neighbors.
Recently, a crowd of about 70 people filed inside the cavernous space that used to be home to the Midtown Walmart.
Alderman Mark Chambers represents the neighborhood. “Why we are here? Midtown Center is vitally important to our community,” he said.
Decades ago, Midtown Center was Capitol Court, a shopping center that was ultimately torn down.
“Then Midtown Center came out in 2002...everyone was happy about this vibrancy that was going on. But year after year, things started closing,” Chambers said.
The Walmart shuttered its doors 10 years ago.
A developer, Trent Overhue, bought the building and land north of it in 2022 for about $3 million. His vision was to transform the building to a self-storage operation. Chambers says the City denied the plan.
“Storage kills development,” Chambers said.
Overhue is now proposing what he describes as a “dynamic development” for the entire parcel. It would include affordable housing, a library, community space and an about 100,000-square-foot storage and data processing facility.
“This is a way for us as a community to turn a blighted area into something that is positive,” Chambers said.
At the meeting with Ald. Chambers, one person after another expressed concern about the data center — about its impact on the electrical grid, how much water it would use and about air and noise pollution.
Ted Matkom with Gorman & Company spoke on behalf of the developer.
“Trent has said this many times – the reason the computer research center works here is because Walmart was a big user of electricity with its cooler. The infrastructure is sitting right here, OK. So, he’s using that existing infrastructure, not upgrading at all,” Matkom said.
As for water, according to the proposal, the center would use ”less than approximately 5 gallons per day under normal operations.”
“Trent has what’s called a closed-loop system. He fills the system and then it goes for 30 days and then they empty it,” Matkom said.
Developer Trent Overhue and Ald. Chambers have made a distinction between this project and the hyperscale data centers used to power AI. Those have been popping up around Wisconsin, including in Port Washington and Mount Pleasant, and have drawn vocal opposition from many residents.
Roshay Guadalupe lives near the Midtown development. She wants the city to slow down and consider other options, with an eye on creating jobs for people in the area.
“Has there been any research on what the community is looking for for job creation? What does that look as far as getting those dollars to make something like that happen? I own a coffee shop, but my coffee shop is all the way to Walker's Point and I live over here. I would love to have my coffee shop where I live,” Guadalupe said.
In addition to reassurances about the impact of the data center, Ted Matkom touted the affordable housing part of the project.
“Another crisis that’s happening in Milwaukee...is housing. So, what we’re trying to do is actually bolster the workforce. The Midtown retailers are complaining they can’t get labor. Could their labor live right there?” Matkom said.
But residents still have concerns. Dr. Melita Pate-Tyler says people in the neighborhood already face environmental health impacts.
“I was kind of surprised that they’d want to put a data center in such a tight dense community,” Pate-Tyler says.
Late last week, Pate-Tyler was at Albright Trinity United Methodist Church — her young daughter in tow — just a stone’s throw south of the site.
She was asking folks to sign a petition she helped draft. It’s directed to city leaders.
“I think we can do better in terms of housing for the community. We can build single-family homes. We can build duplexes. We want green spaces. We want things for community wellness — things that are actually going to help the people who are here,” Pate-Tyler says.
According to the city’s redevelopment authority, the affordable housing side of the project could break ground as soon as August.
The city’s plan commission is holding a public hearing on the Walmart building’s future at 1:30 this afternoon (June 29) at City Hall.
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