‘I like Caledonia the way it is’: Microsoft comes to Caledonia to discuss potential data center

CALEDONIA, Wis (CBS 58) -- Microsoft representatives were in Caledonia on Wednesday night, Sept. 24, at a town hall meeting to discuss plans of a potential data center coming to town. 

The data center would be along Highway 32 near Seven Mile Rd. and stretch across 244 acres of land. 

Prescott Balch lives about a mile from where the proposed data center would be built. 

“I’d be afraid to move in,” Balch said. “We already have people, one of whom was at the meeting last night in front of the board saying she had a 5-acre parcel that she was ready to sell.”

Balch says he is worried about the potential light pollution, sound, and traffic, but also the long-term impacts, especially if Microsoft does not need the center in the future. 

“Let’s make a decision about where we’re going to be in 15, 20, 25 years because we’ll still be here and Microsoft may or may not be,” Balch says. 

Edward Eisenmenger also lives in Caledonia. 

“I like Caledonia the way it is, I moved here for that reason, to get out of the city and that’s why I’m here,” Eisenmenger said. 

Eisenmenger was at the meeting on Wednesday night and is already thinking about the possibility of moving away. 

“If it gets too noisy and everything, I’ll probably move out of here and I’ll probably head up north,” Eisenmenger said. 

Eisenmenger and Balch are open to the center being in town, but want it to be at a different location, where they say the city already has a place for industrial construction. 

“I don’t have a problem with business coming into a community,” Eisenmenger said. “Put it where it belongs, there’s an industrial area that Caledonia set up for putting industry in, have them go there.”

Microsoft representatives and Caledonia officials declined interviews on Wednesday night.