CyrusOne has got the go-ahead to build a data center in Sangamon, Illinois.

Sangamon County Board members voted on Tuesday to allow the construction of a $500m, 280-acre, four-building data center at the 13000 Block of Thayer Road, Waverly.

CyrusOne has stated that the campus will use up to 634MW of capacity at full buildout, use a closed-loop cooling technology, and generate a property tax revenue of around $100 million over a 20-year period.

This is a victory for the data center developer, who applied for planning permission last October. A substantial number of local residents came out in opposition to the proposal, citing concerns about the data center’s environmental impact, proximity to residential neighborhoods, and the procedural manner of the planning process.

But CyrusOne officials were questioned as to whether they had requested local unions sign up early for the meeting’s public comment session in order to try to take the opposition’s spots in the order, according to the Illinois Times.

This was because of a leaked email attributed to David Wells, the Business Manager and Financial Secretary of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, who said that “the CyrusOne folks have asked us to sign up early for this to try and take the opposition’s spots in the order. That being said, hopefully none of us will have to speak,” reads the email.

“Once again, please show up in force … We all need this project.”

CyrusOne, which is jointly owned by private equity firms KKR and Global Infrastructure Partners, operates more than 50 data centers across the US and Europe. It operates two other data centers in Illinois, located in Aurora and Lombard, the former of which experienced a shutdown last November that temporarily prevented traders from accessing services provided by CME Group, one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges.

Sangamon County is located in central Illinois and includes the city of Springfield. Most of Illinois’ data centers are clustered in and around Chicago.