Robbins Incinerator Data Center, Robbins, Illinois

The trash incinerator that closed in 2000 at 13400 South Kedzie Avenue in Robbins, in Cook County, Illinois, has drawn at least five parties interested in buying it for a data center this year, according to its owner, Paul Duggan. He is asking $25 million to $30 million for the 16 acre site on the Cal-Sag Canal. "The model we are looking at is three buildings on the property," Duggan said. "Or it could be one owner and three tenants or one owner and one tenant, like a Microsoft."

Robbins has fought over this ground before. The incinerator was proposed in 1990 by Reading Energy of Philadelphia, which later sold its interest to Foster Wheeler, and the town was told it would receive as much as $2 million a year and up to 100 jobs. Residents of Robbins and of Beverly and Mount Greenwood on Chicago's far south side formed the South Cook County Environmental Action Coalition and spent years fighting the state's 1988 "retail rate" law, a subsidy worth about $20 million a year to the Robbins plant, until the legislature repealed it in 1996. "They said the state's going to pump about $20 million [per year] into it in return for 20 jobs and $2 million for Robbins," said Gloria Scott, who grew up in the town. The plant opened anyway in June 1997, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency alleged it broke air pollution rules 779 times in the six months it ran that year. Built to burn more than 1,000 tons of trash a day, it closed in 2000 after its tax subsidies were removed, and around 2021 the site was earmarked for conversion to a natural gas and fertilizer plant. That plan, by Sustainable BioWorks, was for an anaerobic digester turning food waste into gas and fertilizer pellets, with 135 jobs and a training center for local residents.

Mayor Darren Bryant has not ruled out a data center. "I know there are a lot of negative stories out there, but my job as mayor is to be innovative," he said. "Water, electricity, noise, pollution, and environmental all are concerns of mine too, but we are in the discovery phase. If we cannot solve those issues, it will never enter Robbins." Bryant said the village, as a home rule municipality, could offer its own tax incentives on top of credits from the Cal Sag enterprise zone, and that any project would need the zoning board and the full village board, possibly with town hall meetings first. The site has a natural gas line that could serve as a power source.

Jason Sticha, who has lived in Robbins for four years, was not persuaded. "I am not against bringing business and jobs," he said. "But we need to live in reality. I have seen no positives from data centers."