Data center could land at former Alcatel-Lucent site in Naperville

The site of a once iconic office complex on the north side of Naperville could host a pair of data center buildings.

A striking glass-and-steel building previously loomed large at the northwest corner of Naperville and Warrenville roads.

The five-story structure was demolished starting in 2023. Now, Karis Critical wants to put a data center development on the property within Naperville’s I-88 technology and research corridor.

Demolition crews removed this office complex near the high-traffic northwest corner of Naperville and Warrenville roads in Naperville.
Daily Herald file photo

The campus Karis is proposing is “almost like a boutique, as compared to something that Tesla or Google or Microsoft or Meta would build,” says Russ Whitaker, an attorney for the developer.

“As a co-location facility, it will provide necessary infrastructure for businesses that serve customers in the Chicago metro region,” he said. “We anticipate that customers will be telecom-centric … matching the roots of the former Bell, Lucent and Nokia operations at the campus.”

The office complex was designed as part of Lucent Technologies’ expansion project. A sister building with its “satellite dish” facade still stands in Lisle. Nokia acquired Alcatel-Lucent about a decade ago. To the north of the proposed data center development are the remaining buildings from the Nokia campus.

“That campus has never just been an office building,” Whitaker said. “It’s always been a research and development facility associated with telecommunications. And so it’s kind of a continuation on that theme, where we’re moving from … hardware telephones, to cellphones, to now computers, but it’s all of that communication infrastructure.”

Other suburbs have become data center hubs. The Sears’ headquarters in Hoffman Estates met the wrecking ball to make way for a sprawling data center campus. In Aurora, Gov. JB Pritzker last fall joined a groundbreaking for the CyrusOne data center project.

“The data center buildings put off an extraordinary amount of tax revenue for the municipality, so in terms of revenue delivered for services provided, it’s a huge economic boon for the city,” Whitaker said.

At build out of the complete Karis data center campus, “we’re projecting over $3 million annually in tax revenue to the city,” he said. “The property tax revenue to District 203 alone would be $1 million with zero student generation,” he said.

The development would unfold in phases, according to project documents. The first building — toward the southwest portion of the site — could be constructed in two parts. A second building is envisioned for a future phase, which would be dependent on the available power supply. The campus would be accessed via a secured and gated entrance off West Lucent Lane.

Earlier this year, Mayor Scott Wehrli noted at a city council meeting that data centers are the “No. 1 item” topping a list of conditional uses in Naperville’s office, research and light industry zoning district, which is applicable to the I-88 corridor.

Councilman Patrick Kelly expressed concerns regarding data centers, highlighting their significant demand for electricity and water.

However, Whitaker says not all data centers are created equally.

“The water usage associated with this building will be less than the 600,000-square-foot office building it’s replacing,” he said. “Yes, there will be a demand on electricity, but Naperville has the load capacity in their system today to accommodate that Phase 1 building.”

While the core function of each building is the warehousing of interconnected computer systems, each would contain an office component, documents state.

“We anticipate 70 employees at the first building, and then there will be a host of tenants who will also have people coming in through that building on a daily basis,” Whitaker said.

The structure is planned with “what is effectively a Class A office building front and center,” oriented to Naperville and Warrenville roads.