Two City Aldermen Want Us to Approve the Armory Data Center

Their predictable letter is B.S.

(and we don't mean baloney sandwich)

Letter to the Editor:

Armory data center proposal shifts environmental burdens onto residents

Aldermen Oldenburg and Keys' endorsement of the Armory data center proposal reveal exactly what's wrong with St. Louis development policy. We celebrate corporate investment while ignoring—or deliberately obscuring—the costs imposed on residents who can least afford them.

Let's examine their claims:

Closed loop and air-cooled system to greatly reduce water use?

Closed loop is an industry manufactured buzzword meant to make us feel better about a practice that still uses more water than an entire town should. Even if the water usage is decreased, the tradeoff is even MORE power consumption. Air-cooled heat rejection does reduce direct water consumption, but recent studies show it requires up to twice the electricity of water-cooled systems. For a 120-megawatt facility, that means consuming power equivalent to 80,000-96,000 households—roughly 50-60% of all residential electricity use in the city. When Ameren builds grid infrastructure to serve this single building, who pays? Residential ratepayers. Virginia's experience shows utility bills doubling within 15 years of hyperscale data center buildout.

More critically, air-cooled systems rely on massive industrial fans running 24/7. Communities in Northern Virginia describe the noise as "living next to a perpetually idling airplane." Internal noise in data centers reaches 96 decibels—above the hearing damage threshold. External noise from rooftop cooling equipment consistently exceeds safe levels during hot weather, causing chronic sleep disruption, elevated stress, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease in nearby residents. Studies document property value declines of 300-1,000 feet from these facilities due to noise and industrial character. This corridor already suffers from untenable noise pollution. We must not add more to this toxic toasted ravioli.

LEED design standards?

LEED certification is a voluntary corporate branding exercise that doesn't limit water consumption, regulate noise, address air quality from diesel generators, or protect residents. It can be gamed through purchased "credits" and offsets occurring far from the actual site. Communities don't need green-certified buildings; they need enforceable protections, and none of those exist here or anywhere.

Much-needed revenue?

The aldermen tout $484.7 million in projected revenue while ignoring the costs. Recent modeling estimates U.S. data centers will contribute to 1,300 premature deaths annually by 2030, with a $20 billion public health burden from diesel generator emissions alone. Nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter increase respiratory disease, cardiovascular conditions, and cancer risk—disproportionately in communities already facing environmental justice burdens.

Who pays those costs? The residents breathing the exhaust. Who monitors compliance? Missouri's notoriously weak environmental enforcement regime. Who benefits? Developers and the central corridor—the same 50-year pattern that's left the rest of the city, especially North City behind.

Over a thousand construction jobs?

Yes—temporary jobs. Permanent employment is minimal: 50 data center operators for a facility that size. Research from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and Piedmont Environmental Council confirms data centers are poor long-term job engines. Most employment is construction-phase only.

Meanwhile, the burdens are permanent: 24/7 noise, diesel backup generator testing (100+ hours annually of emissions and 100-decibel noise), elevated utility costs for all ratepayers, and strain on water and wastewater infrastructure.

Environmental Justice?

Studies consistently show hyperscale data centers are deliberately sited in lower-income communities where property values are depressed and political resistance is weaker. The host community bears hyperlocal costs—noise, air pollution, health impacts, higher utility bills—while tax revenue benefits are dispersed citywide.

Ward 2 (Oldenburg) won't hear the generators. Ward 11 (Keys) may smell the diesel exhaust, but we are made to believe that outcome is acceptable. Are we at a point where we must sacrifice human beings for revenue? I don’t think so. Is this what "responsive to community feedback" means—listening to developers while ignoring the residents who'll actually bear the consequences?

The Pattern Continues?

For 50 years, St. Louis has pursued a development strategy that concentrates investment in the central corridor while extracting resources from—and providing nothing to—the rest of the city and vulnerable populations. This proposal continues that pattern: privatized profit, socialized costs, and empty promises that development alone will reverse decades of disinvestment.

Aldermen, developers, and the officials in their pockets would have us believe we are at a point where we must make “difficult choices”, or we now exist in the world where being “open for business” means that we actively sacrifice the lives of the humans who live here to maintain that open status. This is a false choice. We must push back and vote OUT any officials who would lead us to believe that to operate as a city we need to sacrifice our quality of life in our city. Decades of mismanagement and a lack of will to make real, necessary, changes now become our problem. This is false. Don’t let the will of the people evaporate into thin air yet again. Stop this madness. Terminate this project.

We deserve better than development policy written by and designed for people insulated from its consequences.

Dan Pate
St. Louis Resident (Ward 6)