By Kyle Jackson
On June 15, the Lowell Planning Commission met to discuss rezoning land from agricultural to light industrial for a proposed Microsoft data center. The meeting lasted four minutes before being adjourned due to overcrowding.
Over 150 residents attended the meeting, leading to people lining up outside the hearing room door and into the lobby.
The land being rezoned in question is the Covenant Business Park at 4687 Alden Nash Ave. SE. This 237-acre lot is directly adjacent to long-standing agricultural land, businesses, and other major infrastructure.
“Our property has had 15 owners since 1839. We live in a house that was built in 1839,” said Lowell resident Frank Leasure after the meeting was adjourned.
Leasure’s family home is located directly in view of where the proposed data center would be located. This raised concerns for Leasure about the potential impacts on his land, including preventing him from passing it on to another family member and the natural surroundings.
“I received the land from my mother and father; it was handed to me. And I was going to hand the land to my three daughters, but I can’t justify, even though I might be in the ground, my granddaughter’s daughters getting sick from something that’s useless,” Leasure said. “The last claim I made at the last planning commission was ‘every state that touches the Great Lakes should be banned from (building) the data centers to preserve that clean water.’ Should something happen in Lowell and travel to Lake Michigan, it could be devastating.”
Leasure expressed that he has made countless memories with his family on both his land and Lowell in general, and would hate to see that become poisoned by the data center.
“We just can’t live there anymore. (If the data center goes in.) We’re just fearful that it’s going to (remove us) and then what happens?” Leasure said, “I don’t want to sell my land for 27 cents an acre because no one wants it.”
Microsoft promised the same benefits and safeguards as it did with the Gaines Township Data Center. But local residents remain sceptical of whether the multi-million dollar company cares enough to try to stick to those promises.
Greg Forbes, a Lowell resident and soon-to-be retiring science professor at Grand Rapids Community College, was also in attendance and is a major voice in the push against the data center. He and other residents are a part of the “No Lowell Data Center” community organization.
“The data center came to light in December of last year, so in December 2025, unbeknownst to township residents, the township had, against proper decorum and legal events, been working on this since March,” Forbes said.
The actions in March were under a Non-Disclosure Agreement, or NDA, preventing members of the board from communicating any details of the project.
Forbes stated that the Lowell board of trustees turned down a moratorium on the data center, making it the first township to do so in the state of Michigan.
“So,” Forbes continued, “they were working on this back in March of 2025 and started quietly rezoning the property so Microsoft could use it. No public hearings, no public explanation, and we found out about the activities later on, and then we brought it to a head in December.”
Forbes explained how he and other individuals have been trying to get as many people to the meetings as possible for the last six months.
Last Monday, June 8, Lowell held a planning commission public hearing in a rented-out barn. For that meeting alone, over 450 Lowell residents and community members from neighboring areas attended to expressly oppose the rezoning.
The Collegiate asked the Planning Commission members for comment after the meeting, but was declined.
Due to members’ recent actions regarding the data center, seven recall requests were submitted to remove Township Supervisor Jerry Hale, Trustee Mark Anderson, and Trustee William Thompson.
On June 16, the Kent County Election Committee unanimously approved every request submitted.
“The petitioners submitted multiple versions of petitions for each recall subject as a safeguard, had the Election Commission found that any version was not clear or factual,” Robert Macomber, Kent County’s Chief Clerk, said in an email to the Collegiate. “The Commission approved all petitions, and the petitioners will only need to circulate one version for each recall subject. They will need to collect and turn in a minimum of 894 signatures for each recall subject.”
The language that was approved during the meeting is valid for 180 days, allowing petitions to be instantly circulated unless an affected member(s) chooses to appeal the decision.
Macomber explained that the affected members have 10 calendar days from the meeting to appeal.
Until the recall election, all affected members are still permitted to remain in office.
The signatures for the petitions must be from registered voters who are residents of Lowell before July 31 in order for the recall elections to be placed on the December ballot. Any later than July 31, and the recall election gets pushed back to the May ballot.
“When the petitions are turned in to the County Clerk’s office, only signatures collected within 60 days of the date they’re turned in are accepted,” Macomber said. “All signatures will be verified for validity.”
The meeting packet from the hearing can be accessed here.
The next scheduled planning commission is on July 13, at 7 p.m.
Editor update: The byline was changed to the correct last name. The Collegiate apologizes for this error.
