Lockport mayor says 'no deal' yet as city schedules public workshops on data‑center interest

Mayor (speaker 1) announced a series of community workshops to explain what the city has learned about potential data‑center interest on municipal property and to solicit resident input before any formal proposal is considered. "There is no proposal. There's no deal. There's no site plan," the mayor said, emphasizing that the city will not move forward without community input.

The mayor framed the workshops as an information‑gathering effort, not a vote or a sales pitch, and said earlier experience in nearby Joliet — which approved a 1.8‑gigawatt data center — shows the need to deliberate about scale, traffic and long‑term consequences. He said the city’s property is at stake and noted that previous planning efforts (for the downtown master plan and the Star Innovation District) were done through public charrettes and should be the model for community engagement on this issue.

Supporters of the outreach argued the compute industry and data centers are complex and that careful planning could allow the city to capture economic benefits while managing negative impacts. The mayor cautioned that large facilities can dramatically change traffic and land‑use patterns and urged residents to attend the workshops to weigh tradeoffs.

The mayor said workshops will be held at the high school to allow broad participation and reiterated there is nothing pending to approve: "We will do nothing until we go to the community because it's our property." He noted that community workshops previously shaped major local projects and that the city intends to follow that process here.

The meeting made no formal decision on land use or on any developer proposal; the announcement served to schedule outreach and frame the council’s next steps.