The Village of Grayslake says its massive T5 data-center campus was approved through a transparent public process that included 24 public meetings.
The village’s own timeline adds important context to that number.
Eighteen of those meeting dates concerned the broader Cornerstone development, beginning in 2009—approximately 15 years before Grayslake considered the T5 campus plans now being challenged in court.
The timeline identifies six additional meeting dates specifically associated with the data-center approvals in 2024 and 2025.
Those six meetings were enough for Grayslake to approve a development covering approximately 473 acres and authorize building envelopes totaling more than 10 million square feet.
The village now says T5’s current plan is smaller: 11 buildings totaling 6.75 million square feet. But Grayslake’s development agreements provide flexibility to change the size, layout and number of buildings to meet the needs of future tenants.
That distinction matters.
The current construction plan is not necessarily the same as the maximum development the village approved.
The project is now under construction
On September 1, Grayslake announced that it had issued the first building permit for the T5 campus along Peterson and Alleghany roads.
The permit authorizes work on an 800,000-square-foot building—the first structure in what the village now describes as an expected $18 billion private investment.
Grayslake projects that the campus will generate $1.4 billion in property-tax revenue for local taxing bodies during its first 20 years. The village says it granted no municipal tax incentives, tax exemptions or tax-increment-financing subsidies.
Mayor Elizabeth Davies said the new revenue could be used for direct household financial relief or major community projects.
The permit was issued while a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the underlying development approvals remains pending.
The Preservation of Community Well-being Collective LLC and nine Lake County residents filed the lawsuit July 31 against Grayslake, T5 Data Centers and Alter Asset Management Company.
The complaint alleges that the village approved the project without adequate public disclosure and used zoning procedures intended for ordinary commercial development to authorize a hyperscale data-center campus.
Those remain allegations. No court has ruled that Grayslake’s approvals were invalid.
What “24 public meetings” means
Grayslake published a 14-page data-center FAQ after public opposition intensified.
Near the beginning, the FAQ prominently states:
“100% TRANSPARENCY: No NDA’s signed — 24 public meetings during the approval process of the campus.”
But the chronology immediately following that statement separates those meetings into two categories:
18 meeting dates involving the Cornerstone project and its underlying zoning
Six additional meeting dates involving the T5 data-center plans
The Cornerstone dates begin March 9, 2009. They include proceedings from 2009, 2010, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Only two of the 18 Cornerstone dates occurred in 2024.
The T5-specific approval dates were:
September 23, 2024
November 19, 2024
January 13, 2025
February 18, 2025
April 14, 2025
May 6, 2025
The earlier Cornerstone proceedings are relevant because they established the development framework and non-residential zoning that Grayslake later used for the data-center campus.
But a public meeting about a mixed-use or industrial development plan years before T5’s proposal existed is not the same as a meeting at which residents were presented with the scale, electrical demand, backup-generation infrastructure and environmental implications of a hyperscale data-center campus.
Grayslake’s FAQ combines both categories into its advertised total of 24 meetings.
The campus grew in stages
The T5 development did not reach 473 acres in one vote.
It expanded through a sequence of separate proceedings.
At a special Plan Commission/Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on September 23, 2024, T5 presented plans involving approximately 135 acres in Cornerstone and another 90-acre property.
The first hearing opened at 6:01 p.m. and closed at 6:10 p.m. T5 representative Tim Bright described the company, its business model, expected traffic and staffing, cooling technology and discussions with potential tenants.
A second hearing concerning the adjoining 90-acre property opened at 6:25 p.m. There was no public comment, and the hearing closed at 6:26.
The commission unanimously recommended both projects.
On November 19, the Village Board approved the related ordinances and subdivision plats. The entire board meeting ran from 6 p.m. to 6:25 p.m. The minutes report no public comment on agenda items or matters of general interest.
The board’s votes were unanimous among the four trustees present.
Two more parcels were added months later
By January 2025, T5 had placed two additional properties under contract.
One consisted of approximately 31.5 acres inside Cornerstone. The other added approximately 33 acres to the adjoining planned-unit development.
The January 13 Plan Commission meeting included separate public hearings for the two additions.
The first opened at 6:12 p.m. and closed at 6:13. The second opened at 6:16 and closed at 6:17.
There was no public comment at either hearing.
Commissioners did ask questions after the hearings closed. They discussed the new electrical substation, anticipated power availability and the subdivision of the property into what the minutes call “sliver lots.”
Village staff explained that the smaller lots would allow T5 to combine properties later and adjust the size, number and layout of buildings for unidentified future tenants.
The commission unanimously recommended the amendments. The Village Board unanimously approved them on February 18.
The largest expansion came last
T5 returned in April 2025 seeking to add the approximately 184-acre Cornerstone South Parcel at the southwest corner of Illinois Route 83 and Peterson Road.
The April 14 public hearing opened at 6:01 p.m.
No one spoke.
It closed at 6:02.
Commissioners then discussed roads, public pathways, access points and coordination with state and county transportation officials. The commission unanimously recommended approval.
The Village Board unanimously approved the 184-acre expansion on May 6.
Four of the five T5 public hearings identified in Grayslake’s own timeline therefore had public-comment portions lasting approximately one minute, with no one speaking.
That does not mean the entire commission discussions lasted only one minute. Commissioners continued discussing the proposals after the formal hearings closed.
Nor does the absence of speakers establish that the village failed to comply with legal notice requirements.
It does show how little public participation occurred while a 225-acre proposal grew into a campus exceeding 470 acres.
The approved ceiling exceeds the current plan
Grayslake’s August 2026 FAQ says T5 currently expects to build 11 buildings totaling 6.75 million square feet.
The development agreements reviewed authorized considerably more.
The 10.16-million-square-foot figure is an approved maximum, not a representation that T5 will build that much space.
The village says the present plan is approximately 33 percent smaller than earlier versions and remains subject to change.
The agreements also expressly allow building sizes, configurations and quantities to be adjusted for customer needs, provided the applicable maximum floor area and other development standards are observed.
The public therefore needs two numbers to understand the project:
The current proposal: 6.75 million square feet in 11 buildings
The maximum building area authorized by the agreements: approximately 10.16 million square feet
The power plan also expanded
T5 originally announced in May 2024 that its Grayslake project would occupy approximately 160 acres and provide up to 480 megawatts of critical computing capacity.
The project grew substantially after that announcement.
Plans included in Grayslake’s approval records depict a 23-acre substation labeled 600 MW on the original campus and a separate T5 substation labeled 350 MW on another phase.
Published accounts of the lawsuit place the expanded campus’s total electrical demand at approximately 1.55 gigawatts, with as much as 1.2 gigawatts of leasable computing capacity.
A gigawatt equals 1,000 megawatts.
Grayslake’s current FAQ does not state the campus’s total projected electrical demand. It says the developer will pay for the substation and other infrastructure needed to deliver power to the campus.
The FAQ also says data centers occupy a separate rate category from residential customers and that Grayslake residents will not experience higher rates than residents elsewhere in ComEd’s service territory because the campus is located in their village.
Those statements do not answer the broader regional question of how large new electrical loads affect generation demand, transmission planning or prices throughout the multistate PJM power market.
Detailed impact studies came later
The development agreements establish general requirements for water, sewer, stormwater, landscaping, roads and other infrastructure.
But the approval records reviewed do not include a quantified pre-approval water-demand study, noise study, air-emissions study or comprehensive environmental-impact analysis for the full 473-acre campus.
Grayslake says those issues are being evaluated during the building-permit process.
Its August 2026 FAQ says independent specialists and village staff “are, and will” review studies covering water use, sound, vibration, traffic and emissions as individual buildings proceed through technical review.
The FAQ says the current 6.75-million-square-foot plan will use a closed-loop cooling system and consume approximately 50,000 gallons of village water per day, primarily for restrooms, breakrooms and similar domestic uses.
It also says the project will comply with state sound and emissions standards and that standby generators will operate fewer than 60 hours per year.
Those details are important.
They also appeared publicly in the village’s comprehensive FAQ after residents began organizing against the project—not in the meeting minutes through which the underlying land-use entitlements were approved.
Records were withheld after litigation was anticipated
On July 28, a requester sought the development agreement, hearing re
cords, impact studies and correspondence among Grayslake, T5 and ComEd.
Grayslake approved the request in part.
On August 4, the village withheld one category:
“Records relating to the T5 Data Center Campus that have been compiled by the Village at the request of its attorney in anticipation of litigation.”
The village cited the Illinois Freedom of Information Act exemption for records prepared or compiled at an attorney’s request in anticipation of legal proceedings.
The public-records request was submitted three days before the residents’ lawsuit was filed. The village’s response came four days after the filing.
The exemption may be legally applicable to the records described. But the response means the public cannot review all of the material the village assembled concerning the dispute.
Grayslake’s FAQ acknowledges that litigation now limits what additional information officials will provide.
The village’s financial argument is substantial
Grayslake presents the campus as an extraordinary economic opportunity.
Its current projections include:
$18 billion in private investment
$1.4 billion in property-tax revenue for local taxing bodies over 20 years
Nearly $100 million in annual property taxes after the first 20 years
Between 750 and 1,000 construction jobs annually during development
Between 1,200 and 1,600 eventual operations jobs
Utility-tax revenue that could support community projects or direct payments to households
Those are projections, not guaranteed results. Actual revenue will depend on what gets built, property assessments, tax rates, occupancy and other factors.
Grayslake also emphasizes that it granted no local incentives or tax abatements.
T5’s original announcement, however, identified attractive tax incentives as one reason the Chicago market appeals to data-center developers. Illinois has operated a separate state data-center incentive program providing qualifying facilities with exemptions from several state and local taxes.
The village’s promise of no municipal incentive should therefore not be interpreted as proof that the project receives no tax benefit through any other unit of government.
The transparency question is narrower—and more important
The question is not whether Grayslake held public meetings. It did.
The question is whether residents were given a realistic opportunity to understand the project’s eventual scale before the critical approvals became legally binding.
Grayslake counts 24 meeting dates in its transparency defense.
Its own timeline shows that 18 concerned the broader Cornerstone development, many years before T5’s specific proposal came before the village.
The T5 campus itself was approved through six meeting dates and five public hearings. Four of those hearings recorded one-minute public-comment periods with no speakers.
During that sequence, the project grew from approximately 225 acres to approximately 473 acres. The agreements authorized more than 10 million square feet of buildings and gave the developer flexibility to modify building configurations for future tenants.
Now that residents are paying attention, Grayslake has published extensive information on water, noise, emissions, taxes, electrical infrastructure and community benefits.
That information is useful.
The question raised by the record is why the public did not receive the same consolidated explanation before the village completed its approvals.
Questions to ask
Why does Grayslake count 18 Cornerstone meetings dating to 2009 as part of the T5 campus’s “24 public meetings”?
How did the village notify residents outside Grayslake whose homes are near the project?
Did notices identify the proposal as a hyperscale data-center campus and describe its anticipated acreage, building area and electrical demand?
What is the maximum electrical demand authorized or reserved for the entire campus?
Why is the total projected electrical demand not disclosed in the village’s FAQ?
Does the 6.75-million-square-foot current plan replace the 10.16-million-square-foot authorized ceiling, or could T5 return to the larger configuration without new zoning hearings?
What independent water, noise, vibration, traffic, emissions and environmental studies existed before the Village Board approved the development agreements?
Which studies were completed only during the later building-permit process?
How many backup generators are contemplated, what fuel will they use and what is their combined generating capacity?
What assumptions support the village’s $18 billion investment and $1.4 billion property-tax projections?
Has T5, an affiliate or a future tenant obtained or applied for any Illinois data-center tax exemptions?
Which records were withheld as having been compiled in anticipation of litigation?
When were those records compiled, and do comparable non-attorney-compiled records exist?
Will Grayslake publish the studies supporting each building permit before construction begins?
Grayslake may have persuasive answers.
But the number “24” does not tell the complete story.
Sources
Village of Grayslake data-center FAQ, updated August 25, 2026
Grayslake Ordinances 2024-O-37, 2024-O-38, 2025-O-05, 2025-O-06 and 2025-O-21, development agreements, master plans, meeting records and the village’s August 4, 2026 response to a Freedom of Information Act request, reviewed by CityNewsWire.
How this story was made
CityNewsWire reviewed Grayslake’s signed ordinances and development agreements, campus plans, Plan Commission and Village Board records, a Freedom of Information Act response, the village’s current project FAQ, T5’s public announcement and reporting about the pending lawsuit. Lawsuit allegations are identified as allegations, and current project estimates are distinguished from the development limits authorized in the village’s agreements.