Concord faces decision on novel micro data center

Levitate Inc. plans to develop an 8,160-square-foot, 15-megawatt micro data center at 52 Locke Road in East Concord, with construction dependent on approval from the Concord Planning Board. CEO Ryan Howard said the facility would use single-phase immersion cooling rather than water-based server cooling and would reuse waste heat for amenities such as sidewalks, greenhouses and soil. The company expects the project to generate substantial revenue and views the smaller, closed-loop design as an alternative to large hyperscale data centers.

City Planner Kellie Caron determined that the facility could be treated as a permitted computer-processing use in an industrial zone, although data centers are not expressly listed in Concord's zoning ordinance. The project remains subject to a public hearing and other reviews. Northpoint Engineering revised the application to limit municipal water use to fire suppression and domestic needs, while proposing to replant more than 700 plants in a wetland buffer that was cleared during earlier logging. City officials raised questions about whether that disturbance occurred without the required permits.