{"id":246713,"date":"2026-04-01T13:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/246713\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T13:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:57:09","slug":"svp-mackey-addresses-data-center-concerns-in-town-hall-meeting-the-oakland-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/246713\/","title":{"rendered":"SVP Mackey addresses data center concerns in town hall meeting \u2013 The Oakland Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

On March 26, Oakland University administrators outlined early-stage plans for the proposed AI institute and data center<\/a> during a campus town hall meeting in the Oakland Center Founders Ballroom. The well-attended meeting, hosted by Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen W. Mackey, consisted of a presentation and an extended question-and-answer segment open to students, faculty and community members.<\/p>\n

The meeting aimed to clarify the scope of the project and address concerns surrounding its development specifications and purpose.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur data center is not an AI data center,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cWe are building an enterprise data center that is going to have its own location with for-profit companies. We are building a data center for our high-compute needs\u2026 It\u2019s very different in size, magnitude and environmental impact, and we are a long way from having a shovel in the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mackey emphasized the benefit of the new data center as a singular education environment encompassing research partnerships, internships and employment opportunities for students. He also pointed to the necessity of relocating existing data centers on campus into a specifically-designed space equipped for high-powered computing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur current infrastructure is housed in super inefficient spaces,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cThe world is getting faster\u2026 and we are not keeping up. We are getting passed by without modern data center equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed data center would be developed through a public-private partnership (P3) agreement<\/a> with Fairmount Properties<\/a>, an Ohio-based real estate development firm with experience in higher education and innovation districts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be no construction cost to OU,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cOur agreement is that they bear the finances and they build the data center.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mackey said the administration is seeking faculty input on potential partnerships with tenant companies to operate in the data center. The university would retain final approval over all tenants, selecting companies based on their willingness to collaborate through internships, scholarships, research financing or similar opportunities.<\/p>\n

Through May, the project will remain in the initial feasibility phase, with no final decisions made regarding design or construction. Mackey identified key steps in the feasibility phase, including obtaining certifications from the power provider \u2014 DTE Energy \u2014 and the Internet service provider, as well as assessing specific computational needs and financial viability.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really to identify a purpose-built facility that\u2019s going to drive our campus innovation forward,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cThat\u2019s happening in the feasibility study \u2014 and we could decide that this is unfeasible, and we would not move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the project moves forward, it will be presented to the OU Board of Trustees in June, leading into the pre-development \u201cdue diligence\u201d phase later this summer. Through fall 2027, the administration will evaluate the conditions of development and undertake environmental studies through shared governance<\/a>. Mackey stressed that finalization is still not assured at this point.<\/p>\n

The next phase \u2014 design \u2014 would involve technical evaluation and building layout decisions. Mackey explained that this phase will provide many of the certainties necessary to engage community members with answers to lingering questions.<\/p>\n

The final development phase would oversee construction throughout an approximate 18-month period. The administration is currently reevaluating the P-35 parking lot<\/a> as a potential development site and taking other options into account.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, at the end of design, if we can\u2019t build it or it won\u2019t work, there\u2019s an exit ramp for us and Fairmount to exercise, should it not be viable to move forward,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cWe\u2019re about three years out from having a project \u2014 minimum, three years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Concerns raised during the town hall largely centered on environmental impacts and sustainability goals. One student asked about the precedent OU could be contributing to by moving ahead with construction of another data center in the Great Lakes region, noting concern for freshwater resource consumption.<\/p>\n

Mackey highlighted tax incentives and statutes posed by the state government against the drilling of new wells, indicating that water for cooling must be sourced from the local municipality. He also drew a parallel to recent, ruinous cases of excessive water consumption from data centers in Nevada<\/a>, precluding similar situations on campus due to both Michigan\u2019s state statutes and OU\u2019s values as an institution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to exploring the most efficient cooling systems that we can use based on the design of the center and the type of compute that is going to be in there.\u201d Mackey said. \u201cWe are also, as an institution, committed to protecting our resources, and that means that these questions have to be answered before we put a shovel in the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another student levied concerns about the facility causing further strain on campus utilities following this winter\u2019s high temperature hot water pipe leaks<\/a>. Mackey stated that the new facility would relieve the worn infrastructure by diverting excess heat to ideal locations.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur plan is to take [the Mathematics and Science Center] and heat and cool that building with the heat offtake off of the data center, which will reduce the consumption coming out of the central heating plant and reduce the pressure and the temperatures coming out of that system,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cSo that would actually help reduce that risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students also questioned the differentiation between the AI institute and the facility itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn institute is a cluster of thought leaders \u2014 it is not a machine,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cThe institute is not what we are building. [It] is a byproduct of the facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Should the university choose not to follow through with the project, the issue of OU\u2019s outdated current infrastructure will still need to be addressed.<\/p>\n

Mackey explained that while resolving current infrastructural concerns with the new partnered facility \u2014 which will draw on a previously unused 26 megawatt surplus from a DTE substation on campus \u2014 is the most cost-effective solution, the most likely fallback would be to issue debt to cover independent construction fees, which would be paid from tuition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a P3 opportunity, what you\u2019re doing is you\u2019re using what we call \u2018other people\u2019s money\u2019\u2026 and so they carry the capital stack, but they also generate the revenue to pay for it,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cTo upgrade our current infrastructure into a modern data center would probably take a bond issuance of 10s of millions of dollars, and then that would have to be covered off of general fund revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mackey said that as pre-development continues, so will community engagement efforts. He emphasized the importance of students attending OUSC meetings and encouraged interested parties to follow updates through the project\u2019s website<\/a>, which includes a regularly updated FAQ<\/a> and timeline<\/a>. One may also fill out the forum<\/a> or write to [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I have said all along, we share the information as we get it,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cWe are going to continue these conversations \u2014 you have my full commitment to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we find that the project isn\u2019t right for us, we will not move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On March 26, Oakland University administrators outlined early-stage plans for the proposed AI institute and data center during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-246713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}