Itasca Country Club owners postpone data center plans

The owners of the Itasca Country Club have delayed their push for a building to house a data center on part of the golf course.

The country club has withdrawn its petition for development of a data center on 34 acres - roughly a quarter of the club's property - along North Prospect Road. Larry Swets, president of Itasca Golf Real Estate Holdings, said owners are taking a different approach, which he would not detail.

"We are now retooling the project to focus on the feedback we received from Itasca residents and stakeholders in order to deliver a thoughtful win-win data center project," Swets said.

Swets includes the data center proposal as part of what he calls Vision4Itasca, which also would create a separate "South Maple Marketplace" of new restaurants and solar charging stations in and around homes on the northeast corner of West Grove and South Maple streets.

South Maple Marketplace is still under active development.

Itasca Golf Investors LLC bought the club in 2014 amid concerns about the property's future. Residents at that time were seeking village and DuPage County Forest Preserve District backing for preserving the site as open space.

Mark Seames, a fierce opponent of the data center, said the delay is not surprising.

"It just seems like a misguided attempt by a developer to make money off the land," Seames said of the data center proposal.

Seames said he collected roughly 250 signatures in four days opposing the data center, which would be behind his Country Club Drive home.

In documents filed with the village, owners said the data center would generate $708,000 to $1.41 million in annual property taxes and create 1,000 construction jobs and 96 to 132 permanent jobs. There is not yet a potential occupant, Swets said.