Hearings over the next two weeks will help determine the fates of nearly two dozen data centers and a natural gas power plant proposed in Archbald.

The borough has three upcoming conditional use hearings where developers and residents will testify before council ultimately decides the fates of the Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus, Project Green Mountain and Essential Energy power plant.

Hundreds of residents who oppose data centers have packed Valley View’s high school auditorium this year to hear testimony and offer their own opinions on an industry that would reshape their community with 51 proposed data centers across half a dozen projects.

Conditional use hearings require developers to present testimony and studies showing how they will abide by Archbald’s data center regulations while allowing borough officials, residents and the residents’ attorney to question the developer’s witnesses. Residents will also have the opportunity to testify, and once all testimony has concluded, council will vote to approve or a deny a developer’s request.

Archbald already faces legal challenges from data centers, residents and the Valley View School District, so whichever way council votes, the decision will likely be appealed.

At hearings for Wildcat Ridge and Essential Energy, an attorney representing residents made allegations against the projects that council will consider, contending Wildcat Ridge conducted a sound study without certified equipment and Essential Energy applied with the borough before its limited liability company legally existed.

Wildcat Ridge

The Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus became Archbald’s first proposed data center campus when representatives pitched the 14-data-center facility during a January 2025 work session. It has since become one of the region’s most controversial data center campuses due to its location, size and utility demands. Spanning 574.2 mountainside acres above Business Route 6 and extending up Route 247, or Wildcat Road, Wildcat Ridge proposes to build 14 two-story, 80-foot-tall data centers, each with a 202,340-square-foot footprint. The site plan also includes office, commercial and retail space, including a grocery store, though those are not part of the conditional use hearing.

Proposed by Brooklyn-based Cornell Realty Management LLC, Wildcat Ridge plans to use 1.6 gigawatts, or 1,600 meggawatts, of power while requiring a monthly average of nearly 600,000 gallons of water per day, though those demands spike in the summer and drop off in the winter. The campus would top out at just over 3.3 million gallons of water per day during the hottest summer weather — equal to filling five Olympic-sized swimming pools — while falling to 53,533 gallons per day during cool weather from October through April. At 1,600 megawatts, it requires more power than the entire 1,485-megawatt Lackawanna Energy Center power plant in Jessup can produce.

So far, testimony across four hearings since January has encompassed the campus’s utility demands, cooling technologies, backup generators, job creation, tax revenue, traffic and, most recently, sound.

With 840 rooftop chillers, 168 pieces of HVAC equipment and 588 emergency diesel generators requiring routine testing, Wildcat Ridge’s sound projections were especially scrutinized during its latest hearing May 14, which concluded with the project’s attorney offering Archbald a community benefits agreement worth $17 million if all 14 data centers go online.

During the May hearing, attorney Justin Richards, who represents borough residents fighting Archbald data centers, contended the equipment Wildcat Ridge’s engineers used to measure ambient sound did not meet Archbald’s requirements because multiple devices were missing calibration certificates needed to comply with the borough’s zoning.

By calling into question the certification of the equipment used to establish a baseline for ambient sound, Richards questioned the validity of the data center’s response to a key requirement in Archbald’s data center regulations.

Project Green Mountain

Project Green Mountain became Archbald’s sixth data center proposal in January when Green Mountain 6 LLC filed a conditional use application for seven data centers, each with a 138,000-square-foot footprint, across a nearly 271-acre, L-shaped tract of land at the Stavola Quarry east of the Casey Highway. The two-story buildings would be 65 feet tall.

Green Mountain 6 is linked to the developer of the similar Project Gravity data center campus on Eynon Jermyn Road.

Though Project Green Mountain still raises concerns among residents, its location aligns with the local push to keep data centers on the opposite side of the Casey Highway, away from homes.

Green Mountain 6’s testimony so far has included site plans, utility use, financial incentives, air emissions and traffic. The campus plans to use 525 megawatts of power based on a projected 75 megawatts per building while using 14,000 gallons of water per day for domestic uses like sinks and toilets. The project manager previously testified it would use a closed-loop cooling system that would be filled with trucked-in water every couple years.

Much of the last hearing in May focused on the campus’ 196 backup diesel generators, which could store up to 10,000 gallons of fuel per generator, adding up to 1.96 million gallons of diesel potentially stored onsite.

If Archbald approves the project, the developer offered a community benefits agreement worth to $2.25 million.

Essential Energy

Essential Energy LLC’s second hearing on its 400-megawatt natural gas power plant proposed near Staback Park on the west side of Eynon Jermyn Road concluded in May with Richards arguing that Essential Energy has no standing to seek zoning approvals in Archbald.

In the final minutes of the power plant’s hearing last month, the attorney representing residents pointed out that Essential Energy LLC did not exist March 12 when it filed a zoning permit application to build its power plant; the company only filed a certificate of organization with the Pennsylvania Department of State on March 13, Richards said. The Times-Tribune confirmed that the application predated the certificate of organization.

Essential Energy is linked to Kriger Construction Inc. and its executive leadership; the same group proposes a nearly 620,000-square-foot Project Boson data center across the street from the power plant. Both the power plant and data center are on the former Highway Auto Parts junkyard property.

The project faced scrutiny during its previous hearings in April and May.

The power plant would consist of two turbines, each contained in 40,000-plus-square-foot facilities, a nearly 38,000-square-foot control building, a 29,000-square-foot underground containment facility for contaminated water, exhaust stacks, stormwater management facilities and related infrastructure. The buildings would be up to 55 feet tall, though the exhaust stacks could be higher.

The initial April hearing included emphasis on the need for additional power in the overall grid serving the region, as well as an overview of its site plans. In May, power plant representatives focused on traffic and air quality, though the scope of their testimony was limited. Representatives often pointed to a lack of information when faced with questions on topics like construction traffic when hauling in turbines and components, cumulative impacts from 30 proposed data centers surrounding the power plant, site-specific emissions modeling, noise, health risks to nearby residents, and the exact equipment the proposed facility would use.

For example, Essential Energy only prepared information on post-construction traffic when the site would operate with a maximum of 12 employees, not the traffic impacts of building a 400-megawatt power plant near homes, parks and schools.

The power plant also could not provide specific emissions data, with its air quality expert testifying multiple times that they do not actually know what specific equipment they will use in the power plant.

Firms tied to Kriger Construction also want to build at least three power plants across Bell Mountain above Business Route 6 in Dickson City with four accompanying data centers, though Dickson City zoners denied the data centers.

If you go

Archbald Borough Council will hold its fifth conditional use hearing on Wildcat Ridge’s proposal to build 14 data centers in Archbald’s Eynon and Sturges sections June 15 at 5 p.m. On June 18 at 5 p.m., the borough will hold its third hearing on Project Green Mountain’s plans to build seven data centers east of the Casey Highway off Salem Road at the Stavola Quarry. On June 22 at 5 p.m., council will reconvene for its third hearing on Essential Energy LLC’s proposal to build a 400-megawatt natural gas power plant on Eynon Jermyn Road at a former junkyard. The power plant could potentially emit 28 billion pounds of greenhouse gasses annually.

All three hearings will be in the Valley View High School auditorium, 1 Columbus Drive, Archbald.