A proposed data center in northwest Colorado Springs is drawing concerns from neighbors in the Chelsea Glen neighborhood.The data center, known as Project Taurus is in the process of gaining approval to move into the former Inte l chip facility near Garden of the Gods road.Even on a windy day in the neighborhood, homeowners like Kate Kent can hear the birds. Her home backs up to open space and a clear view of the facility.Honestly, this [the open space] is what attracted us [here], even though there is an industrial center right there, like we knew that eventually someone was going to move in there, Kent said.Four years since she purchased her home, shes now concerned about the buildings next business: a proposed data center owned by the Oakland, Calif. Company Raeden.In 2018, a crypto mining business 3G Venture moved in to the former Intel building. Neighbors like Ron Graham-Becker, who has lived in the neighborhood for nearly 30 years said in the years 3G Venture was present, brought an unwelcome noise.The noise was outrageous, and it was 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no breaks unless something broke down on their side, Graham-Becker said.News5 interviewed Graham-Becker in 2019, at the time, 3G Venture set up shipping storage container to mitigate the noise. While Graham-Becker said at the time it improved the noise conditions, he said the noise problems still continued through 2022.During that four years of noise, it was it was a battle of what was legal, what was not, what was violation, what was not, but when it finally turned off for good, was like, let's have a block party. Let's just pull out all the liquor and everything else, not really, but that was it was an excitement time, Graham-Becker said.Graham-Becker and Kent are concerned the noise could be another issue with the data center moving in. 3G Venture is still listed as the owner of the property, but COO and co-founder of Raeden, Jason Green said the company is simply doing a real estate transaction with the 3G Venture.I don't want to disparage 3G, our business is not their business. We are buying the building. So Raeden is buying the building from 3G, we are in our final due diligence phases. We have an exclusive to purchase the building. We have already spent a lot of money to secure it, Green said, we do not have a joint venture relationship with them, we are mutually different businesses.The city of Denver recently put a pause on new data centers, its something Kent said shed like to see be considered in Colorado Springs.Data centers have garnered attention for the environmental and potential health impacts. Kent is worried about the potential impacts to her family. She did not live in the neighborhood during the crypto mining days, but she wants more transparency on the data center project.I think this time around, the community needs requirements and stipulations in place ahead of time before are allowed to begin because we've been fooled once before, right? And I I really hope that, the city of Colorado Springs won't let us be fooled again, Kent said.Green has held town halls in communities across the country as Raeden has opened data center. A town hall will be held Tuesday night for residents in the area.When it comes to the environmental concerns with energy and water, Green said the data center will be using whats called a closed loop cooling system, like the name suggests, it loops water to cool equipment. Green said its a combination of water and glycol, the bulk of the water use is on day one to get the system up and running.the day one is going to require a certain volume of water to get set up, and that's it, Green said, just as an example, the chip fab requires millions of gallons of water a day. We don't even need a million gallons of water, period, one time.Green admitted the company does not have final numbers on what the water use would look like for the initial set up as the company has not finalized which chillers it is purchasing.As Colorado Springs Utilities customers adjust to new rates, and a new peak rate pricing, neighbors are also skeptical about a business like a data center moving in both from a cost and use stand point.Colorado Springs Utilities told News5 in a statement businesses like Raeden, which is considered a large-load customer pays for the infrastructure it requires. Raeden would also have to provide a collateral, equal to 36 months of minimum monthly bills.Springs Utilities did say since it has joined the Southwest Power Pool there may additional costs the business would pay.It's possible for corporations to be good neighbors.I , like, I don't think anyone in this neighborhood expects them to level that to the ground and put in a park, as nice as that would be, but I think we do expect the city to hold the companies responsible, because otherwise they're going to almost always put profits over the people of Colorado Springs, Kent said.Community members can share their concerns with Raeden at a meeting Tuesday night, April 7, at the Hyatt Place hotel, 503 W Garden of the Gods Road at 5:30pm. ...read more read less