INKSTER, Mich. — A plan to turn an empty Inkster warehouse into a data center went nowhere Monday night after residents filled City Hall to speak against it and no City Council member offered a motion to approve the needed permit.
Klever Technology Center LLC had asked for a special land use permit for the 40,000-square-foot building at 27181 Southern St., which sits east of Inkster Road below Michigan Avenue. City planning papers put the investment at about $75 million for a site that would run around the clock with servers, cooling gear and backup power.
The Planning Commission had recommended conditional approval on Oct. 12. Even so, the request died without a vote.
The room reached capacity, leaving some people waiting outside. Speakers cited noise, light pollution and harm to the environment, and several said the property should go to a different kind of business.
The fight comes as server farms spread across southeast Michigan. Google got its final site plan through Van Buren Township in mid-October, Southfield cleared a Metrobloks project, and work is underway on a campus in Saline Township for Oracle and OpenAI.
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