Pioneer: Project Cardinal Campus

Project Cardinal is a planned data center campus on about 1,037 acres of farmland in the United City of Yorkville, Kendall County, Illinois. The land lies northwest of Route 47 and Galena Road, south of Baseline Road and east of Ashe Road. Pioneer Development, LLC is the contract purchaser of 20 parcels held by Konicek family entities, Marquette Companies affiliates (Galena 47 LLC, MPLIV10 LLC) and the Gupta family.

Plan. The planned unit development allows up to 14 two-story buildings totaling about 17.3 million sq ft, built in three phases. Each phase must be substantially complete before the next starts. A July 2026 amendment set the order as northeast, then southeast, then west.

Power. ComEd serves the campus. The plan includes a ComEd utility switchyard and two customer substations. Two ComEd 345 kV circuits running north from the Plano 765/345/138 kV substation, about 2 miles south, cross the land. The development agreement requires a full ComEd power allocation. Backup generators will use Tier IV controls on HVO renewable diesel, and cooling is an air-cooled closed loop.

Approvals. Yorkville approved the planned unit development in November 2025. It approved annexation, M-2 rezoning and a development agreement with a $51 million up-front payment in March 2026. In June 2026 the city extended the land-closing deadline to December 31, 2027. A neighbor's lawsuit settled on the new phasing order. A second suit by Preserve Our Yorkville & Community LLC, filed in April 2026, is pending in Kendall County court.

Team. Burns & McDonnell is engineer of record. Matt McCarron manages Pioneer Development. No end user has been named.