After being postponed twice following protests earlier this week, the Hermantown City Council unanimously approved several key deals Friday night for a controversial Google data center project in northeastern Minnesota, despite vehement local opposition.
The votes came after four hours of public comments and about an hour of discussion. The meeting ended shortly before midnight.
The council approved a development agreement for the 1.7 million square foot project, which is planned to be built on more than 200 acres in a rural residential area of Hermantown, just outside Duluth.
Other approvals included a special use permit and a site decommissioning plan in the event the data center is not completed or abandoned.
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“What we did tonight is not about AI. It’s not about big tech. It’s not about software,” said Hermantown City Council member John Geissler. “This is a project here in Hermantown, a land use application and the agreements associated with it. And we’ve done a tremendous amount of work to get to this point. It’s come with a lot of responsibility, and I thank the rest of the council for sticking with it.”
The council was originally scheduled to vote on the data center Monday evening. But that meeting was canceled after two straight hours of chanting and protests outside the council chambers.
The meeting was initially postponed until Tuesday evening, then again until Friday. The city limited attendance to 85 people.
He closed an overflow room that was open for previous meetings. The city instead offered a virtual option to watch the meeting and allowed people to email comments ahead of the meeting.
That angered opponents of the project, including the grassroots group Stop the Hermantown Data Center, which repeatedly called on the city to move the meetings to a larger venue to accommodate larger crowds.
“Limit attendance to 85 people, restrict registration deadlines and force residents to stand outside in the cold, facing the elements. Two and a half hours for me. How is that fair?” asked Brian Bergeron of Hermantown during the three minutes he was given to speak. “How is this representative government? »
Most of those present spoke against the proposal, although supporters also addressed the council. Hermantown resident Eric Palmer said one of the highlights of the deal was the $210 million decommissioning agreement, which he said protects the town if the project is abandoned.
“This agreement demonstrates to me personally that Google wants to be a good, responsible neighbor and that the associated investments and jobs are there for the long term,” Palmer said.
Google made other concessions in the weeks leading up to the votes. He agreed to drop a request for property tax breaks of up to $80 million. The project will now bring about $3 million a year in property tax revenue to Hermantown.
Dave Lislegard, executive director of Jobs for Minnesotans, testified in support of a proposed Google data center at the May 4 Hermantown City Council meeting.
Dan Kraker | MPR News
Google also agreed to monitor private wells near the development and reduced the size of the project from four buildings to three while capping the building height at 33 feet. However, each building would still be larger than six football fields.
“There was feedback, and Google listened, you listened, and this plan changed,” said Dave Lislegard, a former state lawmaker from the Iron Range who now leads the labor and industry group Jobs for Minnesotans. “And for that, I am very, very grateful.”
But opponents of the project told the council that small changes to the project aren’t enough.
“You changed as little as possible so you could legally say you listened,” said Richard Hilton of Hermantown. “We are angry because our local city council represents a business instead of citizens like it is supposed to. We are protesting citizens’ loss of rights in their own city. No amount of money is worth that.”
The resolutions passed Friday evening are the last major local approvals the data center needs to move forward.
But the project still faces three pending lawsuits challenging its environmental assessment, the city’s process to change zoning laws to allow it to move forward and the ownership status of the land on which the data center would be built.
Hermantown City Attorney Christopher Virta said the city is aware of the litigation.
“None of these issues prevent the council from moving forward on tonight’s agenda,” he said at the start of Friday’s meeting.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission also must approve an electric service agreement between Google and Minnesota Power. This huge installation is expected to need 500 megawatts of electricity.
That’s roughly equivalent to the combined electrical energy needed to power all the homes in the cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth and Rochester, according to the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota.
Google is also planning a massive data center outside Pine Island, near Rochester. That project must now undergo a more rigorous state-supervised environmental review process following a settlement following a lawsuit.
Data centers have become an explosive political topic over the past year across the country, with polls showing both Democrats and Republicans opposing their construction in their communities.
They also encouraged many local residents to run for office. In Hermantown, three new candidates are running for two vacant City Council seats, largely spurred by the data center issue.
Correction (Oct. 31, 2026): An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the name of the Hermantown city attorney.
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