🔒Naugatuck eyes data center on former Uniroyal site, but wants $14M a year in revenue

Naugatuck is marketing 35 acres of the former Uniroyal Chemical property as a potential data center, but Mayor N. Warren “Pete” Hess III says any project would have to clear environmental requirements and generate at least $14 million annually for the borough.

“There is no data center or AI proposal before the Borough of Naugatuck,” Hess wrote in an Aug. 20 blog post. “What we do have is an opportunity.”

The site is in Industrial Park 3, next to the borough’s wastewater treatment plant, on land that once housed the Uniroyal Chemical manufacturing complex at 280 Elm St.

Naugatuck acquired the roughly 86-acre parcel in 2022 for $1 and has since been converting it into a 13-lot industrial park. Chemical manufacturer Lanxess, the former owner, retained responsibility for environmental cleanup under a stewardship permit issued by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and has spent nearly $16 million on remediation.

The borough has invested millions more, including $3 million from Connecticut’s Community Investment Fund, $6 million of its own money and a $350,000 subgrant from the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments’ revolving loan fund to excavate and cap contaminated soil.

In his blog post, Hess said any data center would be prohibited from drawing electricity from the public grid for normal operations or taking water from the adjoining Naugatuck River. The project also would have to meet borough, state and federal requirements for air emissions, noise, traffic and lighting.

Hess wrote that a prospective project would have to generate at least $14 million in annual revenue for the borough — more than twice the amount generated by Naugatuck’s largest current taxpayer, he said, and roughly 14% of the borough’s annual appropriations.

“If those standards cannot be met, there will be no project,” Hess wrote.

Hess said the site could accommodate a 100-megawatt data center — relatively small compared with the hyperscale data-center campuses that have drawn attention nationally.

During the 2026 legislative session, Hess submitted testimony to the Energy and Technology Committee opposing a data center incentive bill unless it was amended to reserve incentives for facilities that operate without grid power during normal operations, avoid public water use and meet stricter generator and emissions standards.

He told the committee Naugatuck wants to attract data centers, but he argued the bill as written could hurt the borough’s chances.