Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The legislative session has adjourned, bills have been passed, and some have not. The downtown expansion project was one of those not passing, and wasn’t considered by the Illinois House at all. Ryan McCrady, CEO of the Springfield Sangamon Growth Alliance stopped by the WTAX Morning Newswatch to discuss this.

“So it’s really important that we embrace the opportunity in our economy, local economy, for tourism,” said McCrady. “What happens when you embrace tourism is the tourists bring us great stuff that we get to enjoy when they’re not here, which is actually most of the time. So hopefully things can get worked out.”

McCrady calls the proposed expansion “a very important project.”

On another matter, McCrady says the new data center that is coming into Sangamon County near Waverly is continuing to allow for, in his words, misinformation.

“When I see or hear people say it’s going to use millions of gallons of water a day…we know factually it’s going to use 1,100 gallons of water a day,” said McCrady. “I’m thinking about that as a swimming pool in someone’s backyard as multiple times that much water in a given day. When I hear people say things like there won’t be any real jobs, there’s going to be 500 construction jobs for four to five years and 100 permanent jobs at the site.” 

McCrady says it remains to be seen just how much of an impact a data center would have on the local power grid.

“There are no new hyperscale data centers operating in our [Midcontinent Independent System Operator] region right now. None,” said McCrady. “But, they are getting all the blame for power prices going up. What’s driving power prices up right now is, is the, is the decreasing supply we have in the region.”

Click the “WTAX Morning Newswatch” link above to hear the full interview with McCrady.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Technology was used to transcribe the quotes used above, which came from a WTAX Morning Newswatch interview.