Plans to develop a 19,000-square-foot data center within a former Walmart in Milwaukee's Midtown neighborhood have been scrapped following strong community opposition.
Originally proposed as a high-performance "computing research facility" attached to a self-storage complex, the project faced heavy pushback from residents during public listening sessions. In response, the developer removed the data center from its application and revised the project to feature new housing and a Milwaukee Public Library branch alongside the self-storage facility. Local Alderman Mark Chambers, Jr. credited resident engagement for pivoting the redevelopment of the long-vacant site toward neighborhood-focused amenities.
| Distance | Site | About |
|---|---|---|
| 1.91 miles | AT&T: 7721 W Fond du Lac Ave | |
| 3.26 miles | Johnson Controls: Glendale | |
| 3.36 miles | AT&T: 5825 N 99th St |
AT&T built a mobile switching center at 5825 North 99th Street in Milwaukee in 1995. The site closed and sold at the end of 2025, and the 29,500 sq ft building now markets for sale or lease as the 99th Street Technology Center.
|
| 3.58 miles | AT&T: 6812 Aetna Ct | |
| 3.72 miles | Data Holdings Milwaukee |
Data Holdings runs a Tier III colocation data center at 3135 West Highland Boulevard in Milwaukee. The Forest County Potawatomi Community owns the business. The two-story building opened in 2013, added a 7,500 sq ft suite in 2019 and has hosted the MKE-IX internet exchange since 2025.
|
| 4.01 miles | AT&T: 918 N 26th St | |
| 4.22 miles | Aventus: Milwaukee (Lakes) |
Aventus Lakes is a Tier III, SOC 2 Type 2 colocation facility in the Granville Station area of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in a 26,432 sq ft building-in-a-building masonry structure on 2 acres. In data-center use since about 2007 (formerly VCPI/Agility Colo) and acquired by Aventus Data Centers (a division of Vincent Companies) in 2022, it offers single-cabinet, cage, and private-suite colocation.
|
| 5.02 miles | Vaultas Milwaukee | |
| 5.39 miles | AT&T: 722 N Broadway |
AT&T's Broadway central office at 722-740 North Broadway in downtown Milwaukee is the main telephone exchange of Wisconsin Bell and its former headquarters. Reign Capital bought the 20-story 1930 tower and its 1953 annex in 2021, and AT&T leases them back.
|
| 5.42 miles | Cogent: 324 E Wisconsin | |
| 5.42 miles | Netwurx 324 E Wisconsin | |
| 5.42 miles | 1547: Wells Building |
The Wells Building at 324 East Wisconsin Avenue is a 15-story carrier hotel in downtown Milwaukee. 1547 Critical Systems Realty bought the 1901 building in 2020 and runs it as a multi-tenant data center and interconnection hub.
|
| 5.43 miles | TSR 324 E Wisconsin | |
| 5.49 miles | Windstream Milwaukee |
|
| 5.90 miles | TierPoint Milwaukee-Burnham |
TierPoint runs a Tier III colocation and business-continuity data center at 3701 West Burnham Street on Milwaukee's south side. The site came to TierPoint with its 2016 purchase of Cosentry and offers about 3,600 sq ft of raised floor.
|
| 6.05 miles | FIS: Brown Deer |
FIS owns a data center on its 20-acre former Metavante campus at 4900 West Brown Deer Road in Brown Deer, Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee. Ascent operates the facility.
|
| 6.79 miles | Windstream Brookfield | |
| 7.25 miles | AT&T: 405 N Fairway Dr | |
| 7.82 miles | Cogent: Milwaukee 2 |
Cogent Communications runs its Milwaukee 2 data center at 2915 South 5th Court in Milwaukee's Bay View area, in a former Sprint network building. The site offers about 3,900 sq ft of colocation with UPS and generator backup.
|
| 8.85 miles | Fiserv: Brookfield |
Fiserv runs a data center in its former headquarters campus at 255 Fiserv Drive in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Fiserv kept the data center when it moved its headquarters to downtown Milwaukee in 2023, and put the 186,000 sq ft campus up for sale in 2024.
|
| 9.47 miles | Verizon Wireless: New Berlin | |
| 10.13 miles | Lumen Milwaukee 1 |
|
| 12.39 miles | Ethoplex | |
| 12.71 miles | Mapletree: N15 W24250 Riverwood |
N15 W24250 Riverwood Drive in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, is a two-story, 142,952 sq ft data center built in 1985 with about 40,000 sq ft of raised floor. AT&T used the building for decades. It is now vacant and offered for lease.
|
| 12.88 miles | Northwestern Mutual: Franklin | |
| 13.63 miles | AT&T: 220 Wisconsin Ave, Waukesha | |
| 15.87 miles | Expedient Franklin |
Expedient runs MKE1, its Milwaukee-area data center, at 4777 West Ironwood Drive in Franklin, Wisconsin. Expedient opened the former Harley-Davidson data center in 2021 and leases the whole building from StratCap Data Centers.
|
| 15.88 miles | StratCap: 4777 Ironwood |
4777 West Ironwood Drive in Franklin, Wisconsin, is a 28,500 sq ft data center built in 2008 for Harley-Davidson. StratCap Data Centers bought it in 2022, and Expedient leases the whole building as its Milwaukee facility.
|
| 15.97 miles | MilwaukeeColo | |
| 18.42 miles | AT&T: W277 S4747 Saylesville Rd | |
| 19.09 miles | Point UltraInterested in this information?Contact us | Data center facility details are available on request.Interested in this information?Contact us |
Affordable Family Storage (AFS) is a family-owned self-storage company founded by brothers Trent and Travis Overhue. It opened its first facility in Council Bluffs, Iowa in 2014 and now operates facilities in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska and Texas. AFS buys vacant buildings such as former Kmart and grocery stores, renovates them with its own crews, and usually fits each with 480 to 900 indoor storage units and lockers.
AFS also builds out power and cooling infrastructure, such as air handlers, UPS systems and cooling distribution units, inside some of its buildings for computing tenants, and it runs a computing facility in Springfield, Missouri. In 2022 it bought the former Walmart store at Midtown Center, 5825 W Hope Ave in Milwaukee. In 2023 the Milwaukee City Plan Commission rejected its earlier plan to turn that building entirely into self-storage.
October 12, 2026 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft has cut the number of buildings planned for the 791-acre Durand Avenue portion of its Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, data center campus to seven from nine, reducing the parcel's projected taxable value by about 24 percent, or nearly $1.9 billion, the Milwaukee Business Journal reported...
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