PEKIN – The company that had proposed to build a data center here is rescinding the proposal, mirroring the city’s desire to back out of the deal.
At the beginning of Monday’s City Council meeting, Pekin Mayor Mary Burress read a letter from the law firm Patzik, Frank & Samotny Ltd. on behalf of Western Hospitality Partners. The letter announced the withdrawal of the offer to build the data center and requested that the city return its $85,000 deposit associated with the project.
“This is a clean break,” city attorney James Vasselli said. “This contract is over. It’s terminated. It’s done. We have to return the earnest money.”
The data center proposal had been met with strong opposition from Pekin residents, which played a role in the city’s ultimate decision not to pursue the project.
“We do appreciate all of you coming forward,” Burress said. “We might not have acted like we did because it’s hard to take criticism day after day after day. But we were put in this position to listen and try to make the best decision we can.”
The council had voted in July 2024 to authorize the city’s purchase of the 1,000-acre Lutticken Farm property for $14 million and approved the sale of about 321 acres of that property to Western Hospitality Partners for approximately $4.5 million last April.
Pekin is not the first community to ultimately reject a data center proposal from the New York-based developer. Last March, the company pulled back a proposed multibillion-dollar data center project in Kentucky after meeting community opposition that included a 150-day Oldham County Fiscal Court moratorium on all data center applications.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: ‘It’s done’: Developer withdraws Pekin data center proposal
Reporting by Mike Kramer, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
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