KNSI reports…

St. Cloud residents can weigh in Monday on proposed rules for data center construction, and the city council could vote on them the same night.

The St. Cloud City Council will hold a public hearing on November 16th at 6:00 p.m. at city hall on zoning changes city staff drafted ahead of any developer proposal. In a memo to the council, Community Development Director Matt Glaesman wrote that adopting standards before a site-specific proposal comes in is the best practice.

City officials say data centers are relatively new, and the city’s planning rules haven’t caught up.

Council member Tami Calhoun told KNSI News last month, after the council set the hearing, that she had concerns about energy use, noise and what happens to a building if a data center operator leaves.

Right now, St. Cloud’s code has no data center category. A data center could fall under a broad “communication facility” use that’s allowed by right in the I3 planned industrial district, with no design standards.

The proposal would split data centers into two groups. Smaller enterprise data centers, with no more than 2,000 servers, 10,000 square feet of building space and 50 megawatts of peak power use, would be allowed in the C3 Central Business and C5 Highway Commercial districts without special approval. Larger hyperscale facilities would need a conditional use permit, could only locate in the I3 district and would have to stay at least a quarter mile from residential zoning.

Every data center would have to submit studies on noise, environmental and community impacts, backup power, sustainability and how the site would be shut down. Projects of 450,000 square feet or more would also face a state environmental review, and the city could deny a permit based on what that review finds.

CBS News reports...

The Minneapolis City Council on Thursday narrowly approved new rules for data centers, but failed to pass an outright ban.

In a 7-6 vote, the City Council passed a compromise policy that would create two downtown districts and give council members the opportunity to allow or deny development of specific data centers.

The regulations say that the facilities cannot be bigger than 150,000 square feet if it uses renewable energy, or 50,000 square feet for non-renewable energy. The data center must also operate in an existing space, and it cannot be the primary use of a building.

Council members Elliott Payne, Robin Wonsley, Soren Stevenson, Jason Chavez, Aisha Chughtai, Jamison Whiting and Aurin Chowdhury approved the regulations.

“I think it gives us the conditions to ask a developer what are the things that they’re going to put in place to ensure they’re going to be a good neighbor?” Chowdhury said.

The Council at first considered a full ban on data centers, but the measure failed to pass with six yes votes and seven no votes. Whiting voted against the ban but cast a vote in favor of the compromise policy.

The city put a five-month moratorium on data center development back in June. That pause expires on Nov. 21.

More takes on the story:

• FOX9: Minneapolis City Council approves regulations for data centers, but fails to pass complete ban
• KSTP: Minneapolis City Council narrowly approves data center ordinance that adds regulations
• MINNEAPOLIMEDIA NEWS | Minneapolis Weighs Downtown-Only Data Center Rules as Moratorium Deadline Approaches and Residents Demand Stronger Protections

Owatonna’s People’s Press reports…

After being asked 100 questions by Owatonna, Northfield and Pine Island residents about data centers, the Owatonna Planning Commission moved forward with recommending its proposed ordinance amendments, including defining and regulating data centers.

“It’s a 0.001% area of what we’re doing,” Community Development Manager Greg Kruschke said about data centers during the open house before Tuesday’s planning commission meeting. “The code was last updated in the ‘80s. There’s been updates through there, but the last major overhaul (was in the 1980s).”

Changes to the Zoning Ordinance include cutting about 50 pages, updating zoning districts, adding a shoreland ordinance and modernizing home occupation standards, among others. …

During the open house, Planning Specialist Emma Bransford said Owatonna updated its comprehensive plan a few years ago, and with that comes updating the Zoning Ordinance.

The public chimed in…

The public hearing on the ordinance amendments during the meeting lasted over an hour.

“While you have a definition, which is substantially more than what Pine Island had, the definition in and of itself is insufficient and incomplete for a data center ordinance and will not provide the layer of protection that’s actually needed,” Aubree Derksen of Pine Island said. “You need to also remember that whatever is in front of you has exponential impacts that you might have no control over.”

Derksen and six others read the planning commission a list of 100 questions to ask before a data center comes in, which the city needs “solid answers for.” If officials didn’t have answers to the questions, Derksen said a moratorium was needed “so you have time to figure them out.”

“After living the last 13 months in a lawsuit dealing with Google, … I don’t recommend it. The burden that has been placed on residents has been immense and completely unfair,” she said. “You also have to take into account the stress, the mental health impacts on the residents when they have to do all the due diligence that wasn’t done first.”

The complete list of questions is available at stopthepineislanddatacenter.org/blog-1/request-a-moratorium, and spanned topics like understanding what a data center is, vetting the developer, legal preparedness, fiscal analysis/financial risk, infrastructure/utilities, public safety/emergency preparedness, zoning/land use/code readiness, construction impacts, end of life and decommissioning, transparency/process integrity, readiness/due diligence, tribal governments/ecological knowledge and water sustainability.

Kalkin reports…

A substantial Texas land agreement has given Zone Frontier (NYSEAMERICAN:ZONE) another piece of its planned artificial intelligence infrastructure network. The company is pursuing large data-centre campuses in Texas and Minnesota following a strategic change in direction from its former cleaning-products activities.

Here’s what’s happening in Minnesota…

The company has also disclosed a Minnesota data-centre project with an executed tenancy arrangement involving Cerebras Systems. Its plans include approximately 55 MW of utility power and 40 MW of critical IT load, with Revenue expected to begin in 2027 subject to project progress. Management described a ten-year initial tenancy commitment valued at more than USD 800 mn, with extensions providing possible additional value. The potential extension amounts are conditional and are not present revenue.

Zone Frontier adopted its present name after moving toward AI infrastructure during 2026. It announced the sale of its legacy cleaning-products business in October as part of this shift. Its October 30 Shareholder update addressed Minnesota execution, Debt Financing progress and the Texas project. The company’s immediate tasks involve advancing project funding, tenants and construction schedules. Subsequent updates will show which proposed capacity reaches operation rather than remaining a development target.

Zone Frontier shares traded at USD 3.31 on November 11, 2026, advancing 21.25% during the session.

And…

Q: What Else Is Important for Its Business?

A: The company identified a Minnesota campus expected to support 55 MW of utility power and 40 MW of IT load.

This sounds very much like a CleanCore venture I wrote about in July but some names have changed.

Monticello Times reports…

After months of debate, mounting opposition and unanswered questions, Monticello’s proposed data center moved another step closer to approval Monday night.

But the final decision will have to wait.

Following four hours of testimony, presentations and discussion Nov. 9, the City Council voted 3-1 to direct staff to prepare approval documents for the controversial 547-acre development. The council will consider them at a special meeting Nov. 30, just eight days before a state-imposed deadline.

The votes did not approve the data center or authorize construction. Instead, they directed staff to prepare approvals for annexation, a preliminary plat, rezoning and a conditional use permit.

KTTC reports…

The Harmony City Council tabled a proposed data center ordinance Tuesday over the wording of its sound regulations. KTTC confirmed this information with Harmony Mayor-elect Kerry Kingsley.

The council will take up the proposal at its next regularly scheduled meeting.

The delay follows the Planning and Zoning Commission’s approval of a draft ordinance on Oct. 28. During that public hearing, residents raised concerns about noise, quality of life and environmental impacts.

The draft would allow data centers, data center campuses and cryptocurrency mining facilities only in an Industrial Technology zoning district. Each would require a conditional use permit.

The proposal calls for noise studies before and after construction, as well as annual and quarterly studies during operation. Facilities would also have to comply with Minnesota noise standards and use sound mitigation measures.

CBS News reports…

The City of Eagan is suing Eagan Capital, a data center company in business along Pilot Knob Road, alleging they’ve been operating “temporary chillers” without proper permits. This comes months after Eagan Capital sued the city over a data center moratorium, calling it “unlawful.”

This latest lawsuit focuses on “chillers,” which cool the data center and prevent overheating. During a city council meeting on Nov. 2, Mayor Mike Maguire announced the legal action and claimed the company was operating “without the required permits and approvals”. The court document shows aerial pictures from 2025 showing no chillers on the property and from 2026 showing the chillers in place.

In May, a representative for Eagan Capital told the council the company didn’t think they needed a permit for installing the chillers but applied for one as soon as they were notified. The representative also said Eagan Capital designed a sound barrier around them.

The city denied an interim use permit and later denied an application for a mechanical permit for permanent chillers in part because “data centers are not a permitted principal use in the Research and Development zoning district,” the lawsuit explains.

CBS News reports…

The Minneapolis City Council is scheduled to consider a data center regulations ordinance on Thursday.

According to the city’s website, the ordinance would amend “regulations for certain uses associated with distribution and use of electric power, including data centers, electric or gas substations, backup generators, utility boxes, and battery energy storage systems.”

The Minneapolis Committee of the Whole discussed the proposed ordinance for over two hours on Monday before voting to forward it to the full council.

On June 25, the City Council approved a five-month pause on data center development, temporarily halting new data center projects to allow city staff to study regulations and examine concerns about environmental impacts, energy use and public safety. The moratorium expires on Nov. 21, according to city officials.

The proposal, in part, says a new data center may only be established in a building existing on Jan. 1, 2027, and that the floor area of a facility “shall be limited to no more than (50,000) square feet on any zoning lot.”

The MN Star Tribune posts a piece from Iron Range columnists Aaron Brown…

Voters across the nation rebuked data centers in last Tuesday’s election, vaporizing paper billions on Wall Street. But this isn’t just a national story about money. It’s an extremely local story about human beings.

One tumultuous week in Hermantown, Minn., reminded us how quickly political fortunes can change when the public loses trust in their leaders. Politicians, take warning. Transparency is not negotiable in projects so consequential to the economic lives of your constituents.

The full article is worth checking out!

FOX21 reports...

The City of Hermantown may have given the green light to build a Google data center, but that’s not stopping another lawsuit from being filed.

The groups behind the lawsuit are the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) and the Stop The Hermantown Data Center (SHDC). The groups claim the city’s environmental review process violated the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act because they say the process was done before enough was known about the project and its impacts.

The groups filed an appeal over the type of environmental review used for this project. It’s called an “alternative urban area-wide review” (AUAR), and the city adopted it in October 2026.