The Upper Merion Township Board of Supervisors unanimously rejected a proposed 5-million-square-foot AI data-center campus that had sparked pushback from residents, a lawsuit from the developer, and accusations of mistreatment and intimidation.
After the decision was made at a Thursday night meeting, some in the crowd applauded, danced, and high-fived one another. The rejection came after three hours of fiery exchanges between the developer, Brian O’Neill, and township officials.
O’Neill and his team said they were prepared to go over each of the township’s comments about his five proposed sites in the King of Prussia area. But officials said it was too little, too late, and asked if O’Neill’s team was “filibustering.”
“Are you asking us to not present those facts in defense of those plans when it’s clear all you want to do is deny our plan and go home tonight?” said O’Neill. He later said township officials were violating state and local planning codes, an allegation they denied.
“Your attempt here to lecture us is considered an intimidation. And I don’t want to see our professional staff bullied or coerced,” said William Jenaway, vice chair of the Upper Merion Township Board of Supervisors. “Intimidation, coercion and bullying are not good qualities in a professional leader.”
O’Neill, a longtime real-estate developer, has recently turned his sights to data centers. He first proposed building one of the controversial cloud-storage facilities in nearby Plymouth Township. In Upper Merion, he wants to build a data center complex on five properties in the township’s Swedeland section, a small residential and industrial area between West Conshohocken and Bridgeport.
Those projects aren’t dead: O’Neill can appeal the board’s denial, as chair Tina Garzillo told him Thursday.
“Don’t you worry about that,” said O’Neill, before walking out of the Upper Merion Area Middle School auditorium to a chorus of boos.
The board’s decision came after months of contention and a whirlwind two days of legal back-and-forth.
O’Neill on Wednesday sued the township, its planning commission, and its board of supervisors, saying they violated his legal right to an extension and treated him unfairly during the development review process. Soon after, Montgomery County Court Judge Garrett D. Page ordered the township to halt proceedings and decisions related to the data centers until a hearing next week.
Citing the ruling, Edmund J. Campbell, an attorney for O’Neill, declined to make a presentation on two of the five proposed data-center sites at an Upper Merion Township Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday night.
Late Thursday afternoon, however, Page vacated his previous order, allowing the township board of supervisors to proceed with its meeting as planned. On the agenda: A vote on O’Neill’s request for an extension until Sept. 30, and votes on the five proposed data centers.
After an hour of public comment, all but one of which was from residents opposing the data centers, the township’s board of supervisors voted to deny O’Neill’s extension requests. The board then moved on to vote on the land development plans for each of the five sites.
One by one, the plans were denied unanimously by the five-person board.
Each vote was met with loud cheers from attendees.
For months, residents have rallied against O’Neill’s plans, packing township meetings and putting up bright orange lawn signs opposing the projects. About 18,000 people had signed a Change.org petition against the Upper Merion data centers as of Thursday. Some neighbors have expressed concerns about pollution, light, noise, electricity prices, property values, and quality of life.
“I’m really proud to stand here tonight with each and every other concerned resident,” Courtney Smith said Thursday. “We all have something important here to fight for.”
“The people here are here because they care deeply about the long-term interest of our communities,” Montgomery County Commissioner Neil K. Makhija said during his comments in opposition of the plan. The commissioner said the supervisors’ decision would have ramifications beyond the county, as communities across the region and the country weigh data-center development.
O’Neil has said his data centers would benefit Upper Merion and “change the world for the better.” While the developer has declined to specify who exactly would operate the centers, he has indicated the facilities would use AI-powered biotech in conjunction with his existing life-sciences complex, Discovery Labs.
O’Neill has said his data centers would comply with the highest environmental standards, emitting little light and noise. They would operate on a closed-loop system, requiring no outside water, he said, and provide their own power.
The developer has also said they’d be an economic boon to the area. Last week, he released an economic impact study that said the Upper Merion centers would result in more than 10,000 jobs during its construction and then generate more than $55 million a year in local tax revenue.
At Thursday’s board of supervisors meeting, however, Upper Merion Township Tax Collector Evelyn Ankers disputed those figures, and said O’Neill has failed to pay taxes on his properties in the past.
Across the Schuylkill, a data-center fight rages on between O’Neill and some residents of Plymouth Township, where the developer wants to build a 2-million-square-foot facility on a shuttered steel mill outside Conshohocken.
The developer recently filed a legal challenge to the Plymouth Township zoning ordinance, and has exchanged accusations of mistreatment with township leaders. News of O’Neill’s actions in Plymouth Township prompted a rebuke from Gov. Josh Shapiro, who had previously encouraged data center development in the commonwealth.
A date has not been set for the next Plymouth Township meeting, though officials indicated it would be sometime in September.
