Construction has started on a new data center in the Carol Stream area of Chicago, Illinois.

The Village of Carol Stream this month announced the area’s first data center, developed by Oppidan, is currently under construction. Part of Chicago’s western suburbs, Carol Stream is a village in DuPage County.

Located at 245 Kehoe Boulevard, the site previously housed the Henkel adhesives company. The Henkel building was demolished in 2022, and the site is currently being prepared for a 90,000 sq ft (8,360 sqm) data center. Power Construction is developing the site.

According to the Daily Herald, Carol Stream received the building permit application in April 2024, and issued permits for the single-story facility in September. The site currently spans 11.4 acres, but a further three acres may be acquired in the future for further development. The first phase is due live in 2026.

Carol Stream Community Development Director Don Bastian told the publication Oppidan is bound by NDAs and can’t disclose the intended end user.

Henkel is a German chemical firm. Its Carol Stream building was demolished in 2022, and the site underwent soil remediation in May 2022.

The previous building was a 50,300 sq ft (4,675 sqm) single-story facility built around 1971 for the Pierce & Stevens Chemical Corp. to produce paints, coatings, and adhesives for the graphic arts and book/magazine publishing industries.

Henkel had owned the site since 2005 after acquiring Sovereign Specialty Chemicals, which had taken over Pierce & Stevens in the 1990s.

Minnesota-based Oppidan is a property development firm. Its data center clients in the past have reportedly included Oracle, several unnamed telcos, Bell Canada brand Bell Alliant, and Sabey Corp.

It has been involved with projects in Memphis, Tennessee; an AWS project in California; and in 2022 acquired four plots in Santa Clara alongside Harrison Street set to be developed into a 50MW data center. It recently filed to build a 5MW facility in El Paso, Texas.