The University of Michigan is continuing to plan a large-scale supercomputing facility in Ypsilanti Township, despite three denouncement resolutions from the city and township, consistent opposition from local residents and a recent moratorium on Ypsilanti's water and sewer services that restricts their use for data centers and similar facilities.
Before the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority voted to approve the moratorium April 22, 2026, its board of commissioners, along with several other Ypsilanti officials, was sent a legal notice by the Barnes & Thornburg law firm representing U-M asserting that the resolution "would be legally invalid because, among other defects, it would be unrelated to any documented utility or public health needs."
The notice, a copy of which was obtained by The Eastern Echo, also says that the moratorium is discriminatory in its singling out of data centers. While the document concludes by reserving the University's right to pursue additional legal action, the firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it or U-M would be pursuing such measures in wake of the moratorium being passed.
U-M's official stance on the project has remained firm for over a year, but some individuals within the institution have expressed concerns. U-M Regent Paul Brown told The Echo May 22, 2026, that environmental risks and community pushback were primary reasons for his own opposition to the project being constructed on the Textile Road site next to North and South Hydro Park, the Huron River and Ford Lake.
"At the end of the day, the community must appreciate and support the project" Brown said."If that's not the case, then it is just simply environmental racism. And so I think it's incumbent on those people in the university, who believe one site or another is the most appropriate — it is incumbent upon them to educate and inform the community that they're proposing to the point where that community supports it."
During a regent meeting June 12, 2025, Brown appeared to vote in favor of the University purchasing the Textile Road site.
Brown said that the regents may have limited power over some aspects of the project, and that taking action to interfere with it would be an unusually political break with how the board typically operates. Even so, he said that an exception could be made when it comes to issues that involve the general welfare of the university.
"That is a dramatic thing for a regent to do," Brown said. "I don't know where my fellow regents stand on this specific matter."
A representative for U-M Regent Jordan Acker said that Acker was not immediately available for comment, and none of the other six regents responded to requests for comment.
Development sites
Two sites have been in the running for U-M's potential data center, though the university has rejected that term for it, instead characterizing it as a supercomputing facility. The purchase of the Textile Road location was finalized in March 2026, but negotiations with the American Center for Mobility over the second site near Willow Run airport have yet to produce a purchase agreement.
Michigan Rep. Jimmie Wilson Jr., D-District 32, shared an update with The Echo in a written statement May 22, 2026.
"The interim CEO at the American Center for Mobility is in conversations with the University of Michigan to see if a deal can be made for the UofM/Los Alamos project to be moved to the ACM site," Wilson Jr. said in the written statement.
Wilson, who represents Ypsilanti's district in the state house, introduced a bill in December 2025 to revoke the $100 million that the Michigan Economic Development Corporation had allotted for the project, which is being planned in partnership with the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The LANL has confirmed in the past that the larger of the two computing facilities being planned would be used for confidential research, including nuclear weapons strategy research.
U-M Regent Brown was not able to confirm the specific ACM representatives involved in negotiations, but said that he would bet his life that the university was actively in conversation with the ACM regarding the site. The ACM did not respond to requests for comment.
The Ypsilanti Township Board of Trustees advocated for the Willow Run site to be chosen over the Textile Road site in the past, but its position has shifted to total opposition of the project in recent months.
The American Center for Mobility building near the Willow Run Airport on May 23, 2026.
Brown said that he thought local resolutions were often politically performative, but that he and the board were open to advocating for the data center to be built elsewhere if community members didn't want it.
Community sentiment
At township board and city council meetings, Ypsilanti residents have expressed a number of ethical, environmental and logistical concerns about data centers being built in the township. The Eastern Echo spoke with community members who live near the two sites to learn more about local sentiment outside of government meetings.
David Beavers, a Superior Township resident who lives near the Willow Run location, said that if the data center were to be built in the community, U-M should cover all of its bases so that "people could still go on with their lives without having their lives interrupted by some factory that they decided to put in the 'hood, or whatever you want to call it, and find out, this wasn't a good idea. But see, they won't know if it's a good idea without putting it in the 'hood."
Beavers acknowledged that other community members might be interested in the employment and tax benefits of the data center, but said that he didn't want the community to end up in a situation like the Flint water crisis or the economic downfall seen in Gary, Indiana from the decline of the steel industry.
Jacqueline Stiltner, an Ypsilanti Township resident who lives near the Willow Run location, said that her concerns about energy usage and water pollution from the cooling systems outweighed the incentive of job creation. U-M has said that the facility would use direct-to-chip computer cooling, which uses less water than other methods, and that no water would be taken from or released into the Huron River.
Brown said that even though water is a major input for data and computing centers, he believed energy was the primary environmental and economic concern. He also questioned the need for data and computing centers to be in Michigan at all, and said,"there's a lot of water in a lot of places."
Mariya Duncans lives in a neighborhood adjacent to the Textile Road site. She said that while she likes living in her community, her main concern was the crime risks for the data center employees.
"The area literally down the street is bad," Duncans said. "The liquor store here is bad; people get shot there all the time."
For that reason, and because of noise pollution concerns, she said that the Willow Run location would be a better place for the facility to be built.
"I hear cars all the time, and it's very loud," she said when talking about her past experience living in the neighborhood.
U-M has said that the noise produced by the facility would be "no louder than a household air conditioner at property lines," but Ypsilanti Township resident Dan Blakeney said the noise from construction could be an issue of its own. U-M has projected that construction will last from 2028 to 2031, and Blakeney lives within five miles of both locations that U-M is considering.
Blakeney said that he has been angry at U-M for planning to build the data center in Ypsilanti, and that he resents the university for pushing the project on the community.
"I don't like the idea of warfare anyway," Blakeney said. "I don't like the idea of something that might have made us more of a target for terrorists, because it was a nuclear research computer center ... We're just normal people here in Ypsi, and if they want to build something right on our chest, they will."
Blakeney, who works as a camera operator for broadcast sporting events, said that he recently started testing out a new drone at North Hydro Park, and spoke fondly about his experiences meeting and interacting with other people there. When asked if he was worried that the U-M facility being built at that location would negatively impact the park experience, he replied, "Absolutely."
Ypsilanti residents are not the only ones to use North Hydro Park. Wayne County residents Logan Fox and Blake Williams came to fish in the Huron River May 22, 2026, and agreed that while data centers would likely be necessary at some point, they did not want to see them built at the cost of wildlife destruction.
"I think there's also a lot of unknowns," said Fox, who works at the U-M hospital. "Which is fair, 'cause it's new. I'm not entirely against the whole concept, but I think turning our land into warehouses full of chips is not ideal."
