So many trucks they will be ‘like ants on a hill’

With development of the Vantage Data Centers Lighthouse campus in Port Washington underway, construction crews are already preparing roads and intersections for the flotilla of heavy trucks and machinery about to descend on the project.

Work permits have already been issued by Ozaukee County for the developer to widen and improve three county road intersections — Highway H at Highland Drive, Highway H at Highway KW and Highway KW at Lake Drive — “to accommodate heavy vehicle movements.”

The expectation is that so many heavy trucks will be used, “it will be like ants on a hill,” county Public Works Director Jon Edgren told members of the Public Works Committee last week, although he said he doesn’t have a precise number of how many trucks will be operating.

“I don’t know, and have heard many different estimates and guesses on potential truck volumes,” he said.

“It will be like (construction of) the freeway,” Supr. Dan Vogel said, referring to the recent widening of I-43 from Silver Spring Drive in Milwaukee to Highway 60 in Grafton. “It will soak up all the resources in the region.”

According to the work permits issued by Edgren, all work will be “performed under traffic” with “any lane closures to be pre-approved by Ozaukee County” with 48-hour notice.

Work will include concrete curb and gutter work, the permits say.

“We approved this work to occur under traffic conditions, so there may be flaggers but roadways shouldn’t close,” Edgren said.

Edgren said other permits have been issued for other locations, “but those aren’t under my jurisdiction and I’m not aware of the current status.”

City Public Works Director Rob Vanden Noven said the only roadwork permits issued by the city so far are on Highland Lane and Highland Drive related to the extension of water and sewer to the campus.

County Administrator Jason Dzwinel said even though data center roadwork is likely to disrupt normal traffic, the end result will benefit the county.

“Though a project of this scale will place added demands on our county roads and those demands commit the county to evaluate ways to mitigate the financial impact of potential reconstruction, the temporary wear is outweighed by the long-term value this development brings to Ozaukee County,” he said.

A tax incremental financing (TIF) district that will fund as much as $175 million in infrastructure improvements for the data center campus also will pay for improvements and repairs needed to the roads from the construction, according to a developer’s agreement Vantage struck with the city.

The agreement covers plans by Denver-based Vantage Data Centers to develop a data center campus on the south half of the roughly 1,900 acres.

The northern portion of the land may be developed in smaller phases, the agreement states, but it also allows the city to buy the property for the amount Vantage paid for it if no development occurs by Jan. 1, 2038.

Plans for the southern portion of the land show four data center buildings and supporting structures, as well as a warehouse and operations center on 672 acres on the new north side of the city. 

The campus is bordered by Highland Drive on the south, I-43 on the east, the Ozaukee Interurban Trail on the west and an area about 800 feet south of Lake Drive on the north.

Vantage has agreed not to seek TIF funding until next year, allowing the assessed value of its land — an estimated $120 million — to be placed on the tax rolls.

That will provide approximately $650,000 in tax revenue for the city in 2027 and result in a reduction of $170 in taxes for a house valued at $350,000, city officials say.

Dzwinel said he has not seen an estimate of what delaying TIF funding will mean for county coffers.

In a TIF district, the properties within the district continue to increase in value and pay property taxes commensurate with that increase, but taxing entities such as the city, county and school district only receive the same amount of taxes they did when the district was created.

Any taxes generated by the development, called increment, would be used to repay the developer for infrastructure and similar amenities within the district.  Once the costs are repaid, the TIF district is dissolved and the entire value of the property is put on the tax rolls.

The agreement states that it could take as long as 20 years to repay Vantage for its costs, but officials believe it would take far less time for that to occur, in part because they believe the cost of the infrastructure projects will likely be less than $175 million.