Data center fears grow after massive land purchases in Chicago suburb

ESSEX, Ill. - Residents in far south suburban Essex have been on edge for nearly a year about a data center possibly being built in their village.

While most municipalities do not want one in their backyard, residents say this one is definitely too close for comfort.

In today's Unit 32 investigation, Fox Chicago's Bret Buganski finds out why.

When Taylor Gunier and her family bought this house last summer, they were excited to move in.

"My husband and I grew up in Minooka, moved to Joliet, we have two small kids and we were just looking for a place that was a small town, open, farm fields and quiet, so we found Essex," Gunier said.

That excitement ended the week they moved in.

"We bought our house at the premium golf course price right next to the clubhouse that is burned down. We heard then that it wasn't going to reopen and then we learned of the land sales. We learned of these 700 acres being sold to Constellation. We learned about the golf course then being sold to Constellation," Gunier said.

Gunier says the next thing she knew, she saw engineers employed by the village in her backyard working near the land Constellation had purchased.

"When I went out to approach them about what they were doing out there, they said they were marking and surveying land for Constellation," Gunier said.

Seven hundred acres is a lot of land when you are talking about Essex — that's essentially half of the village.

Essex land sales

The backstory:

According to U.S. Census Bureau records, Essex is just 2.3 square miles or roughly 1,500 acres.

So is half of the village being bought up to build a data center?

"August of 2025, we heard rumblings of a data center being built in Essex Village," resident Kylee Raney said. "Since then, we have found out that Constellation Energy has purchased over 700 acres on top of Essex Village. Some of that acreage includes land that goes right up to residential homes. We're talking 10 feet."

Raney is one of the organizers of the Essex Coalition. The group has about 40 members who have been tracking the Essex Village Board's actions related to the land sales.

What they're saying:

Heather Harms is also a member of the coalition.

"I just saw the need that we needed a voice," Harms said. "We weren't getting our answers that we wanted, and I was just nervous what's going to happen to our homes and our community."

Harms' family has lived and farmed here for three generations.

"I'm sad because we have a lot of farmers here. We have a lot people that use this land for hunting, and they depend on that and they're not going to have that anymore," Harms said. "This is my hometown and I love to see growth in a community. Like we need growth, but we need like a gas station. We need a park that's nicer."

So Unit 32 started digging.

Through a Freedom of Information request to the Kankakee County Recorder of Deeds and numerous cross-reference checks with the treasurer's office, we found Constellation spent $47.5 million dollars on 14 different land deals in or near Essex over the past year.

By the numbers:

Records reviewed by Fox Chicago show the company purchased at least 505 acres between June 2025 and February 2026. The total is likely to be higher because some of the public records did not include the number of acres sold included in each time.

Unit 32 also found that two Essex Village Board members were sellers in five of those transactions.

One of them is Ed Foley, who sold more than 215 acres for just under $23 million in four of those deals.

Some of this land was in a trust; some was not.

The other village board member, John Bohac, made $1.5 million when he sold some of his land to Constellation in a single sale in June of last year.

The number of acres he sold is not listed on any of the public records Fox Chicago reviewed for that sale. That was also the case for two of Foley's deals where land that was once the High Point Golf Course was being sold to Constellation.

When concerned residents questioned these sales, the village board had an attorney conduct an "ethics and conflict of interest" review on the mayor and all six trustees in March.

This review found the land Ed Foley sold to Constellation "is finalized and not contingent upon Constellation obtaining zoning or other relief from the village or any other event," and the past sale "does not create a conflict of interest."

The report also states that at the time it was issued, Foley had resigned from the board, making its findings moot but still mentioned it for transparency.

Foley resigned from the board in late February. After 30 years of service, he wrote that "this decision was not made lightly" and that he believes it is the appropriate step at this time. His last deal with Constellation was also in February of this year.

As for Bohac, the report did not have an issue with the land he sold to Constellation in June 2025, and it supports Bohac's decision to "disqualify himself from any vote or consideration on any issues that comes before the Village Board concerning Constellation."

Given Bohac works at the Dresden power plant, a subsidiary of Constellation, the report says "this is a prudent course of action."

After 20 years on the board, he resigned from his seat in April without stating why.

Fox Chicago tried to contact both Foley and Bohac by phone and email to see if they had any comment on their land deals or board resignations.

We did not hear back from either one.

In the end — aside from Bohac, the ethics review concluded " …no Village trustees have a conflict of interest that would prevent consideration of Constellation matters."

"The fact that our own village attorney performed it, I really would have preferred an independent third party perform it. And I do, in my personal opinion, think they would have come to potentially different conclusions," Raney said.

"I think it is a great first attempt at a transparent investigation. If they were willing to perform an investigation with an independent third party, that would go a long way towards showing commitment to transparency and building public trust," Raney said.

Raney said the mayor told the coalition such an investigation is not necessary.

"So I don't think it was ridiculous for the ethics review to come to the conclusion that it did. Again, a close call," said Alisa Kaplan is the executive director for Reform for Illinois.

Reform for Illinois is a political watchdog group focusing on ethics, campaign finance and election reform for better government.

"It's outrageous that this is all going on without a firm answer about what kind of project Constellation plans to put on the land. I understand that this is something that goes on often, but how can the village board be expected to make this decision? How can the people of Essex be expected to accept this decision when they don't know what the project is? And the idea that Constellation doesn't know what the project is when they've accumulated all of this land is pretty astounding," Kaplan said.

"In November, the VP of commercial projects for Constellation came to our village meeting and essentially told us nothing. He told us they don't know who their customer is, they don't know what they're going to build on this land, and he also specifically said that whenever they do decide what to build on the land, they will let us know after they have made that decision," Raney said.

She said the company hasn’t been to any other village meetings since then and they have not received any updates on what project they are planning for all that land.

While Raney and other residents don't buy that Constellation isn't going to build a data center in Essex, they have another big concern.

"That is one of my biggest concerns is the annexation agreement and what kind of special privileges they may have included in that annexation agreement in order to kind of unite all of that acreage," Raney said. "Our village officials are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. It was specifically stated at one of our village meetings that if we do not give them the rezoning that they are eventually going to push for, they can simply de-annex all of that land and go to the county and then we are stuck with whatever industrial development they build without any of the tax revenue."

According to the village's website, Constellation filed a letter and petition last November seeking an annexation agreement with Essex.

The company's letter states they are asking the village "to bring two specific pieces of land.... into the village limits." But it does not say why it wants the 80 acres to be included.

It also sets a six-month time limit to reach a deal or "The request to join is cancelled."

Unit 32 has learned that deadline has now been pushed back to August.

"So, depending on what special privileges are included in the annexation agreement, I'm very concerned about what we are willing to give up in order to appease Constellation. So I want to see an annexation agreement, if there is one, that really outlines strict boundaries for Constellation to operate within. I really think that we could have the upper hand in this situation and I would like to see us leverage that effectively," Raney said.

While Raney said Constellation has not told them what they're going to use the land for, the village board seems to be taking precautions for a data center.

The other side:

On their website, the Essex board wrote it "has issued a formal notice establishing development standards and mitigation requirements for a proposed data center facility that may be located within the Village."

It also posted another letter — that's written by a different village attorney than the person who did the ethics review.

The subject line says it's a notice about "development standards and required mitigation response plan." The letter was written by an attorney who was involved in a number of Constellation's Essex land deals last summer.

"There's probably nothing the government can do to force private buyers to disclose their intentions when they're buying from private sellers. But now that village action is involved, ideally, there should be a requirement that the company tell them what they are asking for, why they need this land annex, and whether it's the village doing the annexation or the county that might get involved. Either way, these are democratically representative governments that have an obligation to make sure that the people in their communities know what's happening," Kaplan said.

So we tried to see if we could get some answers.

Since Essex Village Hall hours are by appointment only, Unit 32 called to make one to see the mayor.

After leaving him a voicemail, we also emailed him requesting an interview.

A few days later, we received an email from the village with a statement from the mayor that says, "The Village of Essex is officially reviewing a land annexation request from Constellation following the company’s recent purchase of several hundred acres of local property."

It also says "We are at the very beginning of this process …. We completely understand that our residents have questions and care deeply about the future of our hometown," and the village is "committed to an open, thorough evaluation of the proposal."

When we contacted Constellation, they sent us a statement that says, in part, they are "seeking to annex land in essex near the Braidwood Clean Energy Center to help the company strategically market the facility’s carbon-free generation to potential future developers." and that "While Constellation does not have a customer at this time" they "expect any future project on this property would generate additional jobs, tax revenue and benefits for the community."

We also asked Constellation about what happens to all of that land if the annexation request with Essex falls through. Its statement did not include answers to those questions.

What's next:

According to the Village of Essex, the deadline to reach that agreement is Aug. 24.

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