The parent company of WGN-AM, licensed to Chicago, has proposed moving the station’s tower to the north end of its 100-acre property near Elk Grove Village to make way for a three-building data center campus on the south end. The change is part of a plan being considered by village officials.
Nexstar Media Group acquired the 50,000-watt AM station in 2019. The broadcaster intends to develop 35 acres at the transmitter site in unincorporated Schaumburg Township, according to the Daily Herald.
Nexstar plans to petition the village for annexation in order to access critical infrastructure and village services, said village officials, who released details after a neighborhood meeting with residents last Thursday night. The site borders about 125 homes to the south and west. Once a farm, the site has hosted the WGN tower since 1939.
Officials say they’ve been working with the developer as part of the preliminary design phase to mitigate the impact on nearby residents. “We wanted to get involved early so we can guide the development in a way that protects our residents,” Mayor Craig Johnson said in a news release. For instance, Johnson said the village worked with Nexstar to maximize setbacks between the data center buildings and residential properties, ranging from 178 to 338 feet.
There will also be a 9-foot-tall berm with 8-foot screen wall, and landscaping will surround the development and act as a buffer between the data center campus and neighborhood, officials said. The village is also requiring a 25-foot grassy area between residential property lines and the start of the berm.
Formal plans are still to come before the village’s plan commission in the next several months, when the developer would present more details and the public could provide input.
Elk Grove Village has become the Midwestern hub for data center operations, with close to a dozen of the computer storage sites calling the Northwest suburb home, according to the Daily Herald.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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