Data center opponents rally ahead of special Reno City Council meeting

About 40 people rallied in front of CENTRA’s Keystone Data Center on Saturday afternoon to raise awareness about the upcoming Data Center Special Meeting happening at Reno City Council on Monday, June 1. The meeting marks the end of a temporary moratorium that was passed on May 14 and is the second part of establishing a permanent moratorium within Reno city limits. Bree Kasper, a resident of the Keystone neighborhood, said she organized a coalition of 13 local activist and mutual aid groups to show their opposition to the CENTRA data center. “It makes me feel really good that everyone can come together and have the same initiative, the same cause, we can put our differences aside and really just come to a commonality of the fact that we all need fresh water, we all need clean air to breathe,” Kasper said. Protesters held signs and demonstrated in front of the 91,200-square-foot data center, which was approved by the Reno planning commission in January 2025. The city has refused to enact policies covering data centers, and planning commissioners approved CENTRA after city staff said the project complied with conditional use permit requirements, including 24-hour operations. “The project proposes construction of a ±91,200 square-foot industrial building with supporting mechanical equipment to be used as a data center on the subject site,” a city staff report from January 2025 said. Staff said the project “was reviewed by various City divisions and partner agencies.”