SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) - A $200 million data center is being pitched for a vacant industrial site in Holyoke — and hundreds of neighbors are already fighting back. Chestnut River Power wants to build on the old Hampden Paper complex on Water Street. Developers said it would revitalize the area, but residents worry it could strain the city’s water and power.

For decades, this site made paper. Now, a company wants to fill it with servers — and hundreds of Holyoke residents want to stop them. The proposal is already drawing major pushback before a single permit has been filed.

It was once a hub for paper manufacturing. Now, 100 Water Street is at the center of a heated debate over Holyoke’s future. Some Holyoke residents fear this proposal could affect their water, power grid, and their neighborhood. Chestnut River Power wants to build a 20-megawatt data center here — and the pushback is already growing online. One resident wrote that the center would pollute the ecosystem and cover the city in ‘white dust’ for miles.

A petition by Holyoke residents is looking to put a stop to it. Residents voicing their concerns in the comments of the petition site saying, “data centers are actively destroying other parts of this country, Holyoke has a hydroelectric dam, a data center will pollute this major ecosystem, along with our bathing and drinking water,” another resident put it more bluntly, “I don’t want to see data centers ruin Holyoke.”

However, project lead Zaisha Robert said those fears are based on misconceptions of scale compared to mega-projects in other states. “it is not a gigawatt scale facility, whereas that’s where a lot of people are concerned nationally. This is a 20-megawatt facility. It’s 2% of what other states are building.”

To put that in perspective, 20 megawatts is enough to power almost every occupied home in Holyoke. Developers argue that instead of a strain, this usage actually helps the city, “supporters of the project have mentioned that the utility revenue could actually help the long-term financial stability of the local utility systems, which benefits the community as a whole,” Robert said.

This wouldn’t be the first data center in the city, and Robert told Western Mass News most people don’t even know the other one is there, “to my understanding, the existing, you know, computing center and data center is actually closer to residential than this would be. No one knows they’re there. Many people didn’t even know they were in the data center. They don’t make any noise. So, and there haven’t been any, you know, negative impacts from having them.”

Now, the developers haven’t officially purchased the property yet — they say they want to make sure the city is actually on board first. We reached out to the mayor and city council for comment today but have not yet heard back. The proposal is expected to be a hot topic at the next city council meeting — as Holyoke decides if its industrial past has a high-tech future.

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