Don’t Let the Bastards Win!
Despite massive public backlash against the Armory Goodwill Data Center, aka the Armory Innovation District, the Board of Public Service approved the conditional use permit on April 21, 2026. Not to mention there are no data center regulations in place that would apply to this current proposal, which seems intentional. This act of defiance against city voters who oppose the project happened while Mayor Cara Spencer was dining in London with top funder Bob Clark. While the mayor was abroad, she released a video promoting the data center deal as one negotiated “on our terms.” It is not on our terms. Residents don’t want this hyperscale data center.
Appeals must be filed within 30 days of approval, making the deadline this coming Thursday, May 21. Anyone who feels aggrieved by the decision can file an appeal, with or without legal representation. The appeal form can be downloaded here. The fee to file the appeal is $200, and it can be filed by delivering the appeal to City Hall room 400. The city accepts payment by both cash or check. Checks should be made out to the City of St. Louis.
Once an appeal is filed, a hearing with the Board of Adjustment will be scheduled over Zoom. The public is invited to testify in favor of or in opposition to the appellant. These hearings involve several different appellants for various applicants, and are many hours long. Ideally, the appellant will be in communication with the greater community so we can ensure we have strong testimonies to support the appellant’s case and win our collective fight.
Meanwhile, the Planning Commission has a hearing with public testimony on data center zoning regulations in the Kennedy Room (208) at City Hall and on Zoom. That is today at 5:30pm. While the new draft regulations will not apply to the Midtown hyperscale data center because it was already approved, it is important to note that if the regulations had been in place before approval, it could have stopped the data center. This is because of its proximity within 600 feet of a residential property, One Foundry Way. This property is 460 feet from the site, according to the answers submitted with the conditional use application in response to Mayor Spencer’s Executive Order 92. The responses were obtained via sunshine request and are downloadable on the “updates” section of our NoMODataCenters.com site. It is also available on the Public Records Archive on the city’s website
Citing a homeless shelter in St. Louis requires 51% of signatures of people who live within 500 feet of the proposed site.. Why is it easier to build a hyperscale data center than a homeless shelter in St. Louis? Why are data centers exempt from getting community consent? We want to house displaced humans, not factories for artificial intelligence servers.
If you file the appeal, please reach out to us so we can support your case: fightback@nomodatacenters.com
Today’s hearing on data center regulations is in the Kennedy Room (208) at City Hall and on Zoom at 5:30pm. Zoom link or via phone at: (253) 215-8782 with the following Meeting ID: 816 9925 8307 Password: 149154.
Kerry McCullen is from St. Louis and is an organizer with the Eco-Socialist Green Party of Eastern Missouri. ESGP has been fighting the Armory Innovation District since August 2025, when we first learned of the proposal.
