Project Ventus heads closer to final development agreement with DeKalb city council

DeKALB - The DeKalb City Council will hold a pubic hearing Monday regarding 505 acres of property proposed for Ventus Tech Services, the pseudonym for a data center looking to put down roots in the city’s south side.

The council meeting, set for 6 p.m. Monday at the DeKalb Municipal Building, will also be live-streamed for those wishing to participate remotely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and social-distancing guidelines. Council is expected to still meet in person as city hall remains open to the public with limited capacity, as the most recent council meeting saw Ward 1 Alderman Carolyn Morris participating remotely via video conferencing.

Residents wishing to view the meeting live can tune in on Channel 14 or online at www.cityofdekalb.com/622/GATV-Channel-14. Those wishing to submit a public comment can do so ahead of time by filling out a form online at www.cityofdekalb.com/formcenter. The comment will then be read by Mayor Jerry Smith during the appropriate time.

The development known as Project Ventus is part of ongoing months-long efforts by city leaders to entice significant industry to the ChicagoWest Business Center, along Route 23 and south of Gurler Road. In January, Ferrara Candy Company announced they would build on the site, bringing 1,000 jobs and substantial tax revenue to the city by 2021.

Ventus would invest $800 million into a 970,000-square-foot space, which would be privy to a 20-year, 55% property tax abatement plan, already approved by the council, with a stipulation of 50 tech jobs with a starting wage of $38.50 an hour, documents show.

The city's Planning & Zoning Commission will also hold a public hearing April 27 to review plans to create an alternate rural roadway between Gurler and Keslinger Road, east of the data center campus, to better flow traffic in the area, documents show.

The city council on March 9 approved a pre-development agreement with Ventus, and Monday's hearing will see the next step: annexing land upon which to build the data center.

The annexation and development agreement up for a first-reading vote Monday includes a number of

Over the next 20 years the proposed data center is projected to yield tax revenue for the participating taxing bodies, even with the tax abatements, that is comparable to the five largest existing industrial companies in DeKalb (Target distribution, 3M, Panduit, Nestle, Goodyear) combined, documents show.