The Plymouth Township Planning Agency has voted not to recommend a data center proposal.

Plymouth Township is located northeast of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s largest city.

On October 1, the Agency voted 4-0 against recommending a special exception for the rezoning of a 66-acre land parcel at 900 Conshohocken Road for the construction of a data center. The site, which is home to a recently retired steel mill, is zoned for heavy industrial use, and the designation does not currently cover data center uses.

The application, submitted by developer Brian O’Neill, also states that data centers are “consistent with and have the same general character” as laboratories and warehouses, which are permitted uses in a heavy industrial district.

If successful, the existing buildings, of which there are ten, would be repurposed to offer around two million sq ft (185,000 sqm) of data center space. Generators will be located outside of the existing buildings, and gas turbines will be located within and between them.

Despite O’Neill’s estimates that the facility would generate around $5m in tax revenue, opposition from the Planning Agency and members of the public persisted. During the meeting, local citizens expressed concern about the potential environmental impact, the impact of the facility on water and electrical infrastructure, and questioned the need for a data center.

This is not the end of the line for the proposal. O’Neill could go to the township’s Zoning Hearing Board, which would issue a final decision, or petition the township’s council for a zoning amendment that would include data centers as a use case within the heavy industrial designation.

The majority of data centers in Pennsylvania are concentrated in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Pennsylvania has seen much interest from data center developers and investors as of late. In July, various firms pledged to invest $90 billion in the state’s digital infrastructure following a summit attended by President Donald Trump, and according to a report published by DC Byte in September of this year, the state’s data center market has grown exponentially, jumping from 231MW of total IT load in 2021 to around 7.8GW in 2025.