Proposed data center in Plymouth Township faces roadblocks

The Plymouth Township Planning Agency unanimously denied a special exemption for a proposed data center earlier this week after community members turned out in droves.

“We don’t need that data center. We’re fine,” a township resident said during an Oct. 1 meeting, calling the plan a “disaster.”

The two-hour meeting included a presentation from MLP Ventures CEO Brian O’Neill, who proposed the development at 900 Conshohocken Road.

Situated at the shuttered Cleveland-Cliffs plate finishing site, the roughly 66-acre property is currently zoned as heavy industrial. Township officials received the application Sept. 19 from the King of Prussia-based real estate and life sciences development firm as O’Neill sought a special exemption to move forward with plans to construct the data center.

Center operator not disclosed

O’Neill anticipated around $9 billion of investment would go towards transforming the plant into a data center. As the owner, O’Neill’s firm secured a tenant for the space, specifying the “user brings in the servers and the computers.” He added the company would employ 110 people with around 55 employees per shift. However, O’Neill said he wasn’t able to disclose who would be operating the facility, as laughs could be heard from the crowd.

“We have a user for this building today, and somebody’s going to get that user, and the question is does Plymouth want that? Or does it go somewhere else?” O’Neill said.

Data centers provide a physical location for information technology infrastructure operations, “running and delivering applications and services,” according to IBM, while also managing and storing data. There were 5,426 facilities operating in the U.S. as of March 2025, according to Statista.

In Montgomery County, MLP Ventures proposed retrofitting 10 buildings on the property, around 2 million square feet, and constructing a second floor inside, “within the existing building volume.” O’Neill stressed intentions for a “beautiful, historic renovation to those buildings.” Along with space for parking, ancillary generators and turbines would also be on the property. O’Neill said he plans to “build sound walls around generators” and maintain the existing closed loop water system. When Plymouth Township Planning Agency member Tony Stipa asked about any “deed restrictions” associated with the property, O’Neill said the seller’s requested “that future usage be industrial.”

O’Neill added the development would bring more than $21 million in annual real estate tax revenue for participating entities, including $15.67 million directed to the Colonial School District, $3.38 million to Montgomery County and $1.76 million to Plymouth Township. Stipa questioned those projections, saying he’d reached out to the Montgomery County Board of Assessments “trying to get a perspective.” He said while “they don’t have any buildings of that size they can really give me comparisons to, but by extrapolation I took large buildings that they had … I don’t come close to those numbers.”

O’Neill’s wheelhouse includes health technology, stressing that “we’re focused primarily on applications with a focus on life sciences.”

“When you make a gene therapy it’s a virus, it’s alive. When you make a cell therapy it’s a virus, it’s alive. You can never shut the building down,” O’Neill said. “An AI-based data center is the closest thing to a living organism as a living organism itself. It’s working 24/7 and it’s creating software off initial ideas that normally human beings would create, and so it’s working around the clock and it’s affecting everything we do today.”

He added that Philadelphia is “number one in cell and gene therapy” as he sought to bring a new facet of the life sciences sector to the suburbs.“We have a chance to keep life sciences and we have a chance to be a major, major player in the data center business,” he said.

Comparing data center to laboratory

O’Neill acknowledged the property’s heavy industrial zoning district status, but observed some wiggle room, according to an application submitted by O’Neill’s counsel, which asserted that laboratories and warehouses are “permitted uses” within the heavy industrial district. The application asserted that “data centers are consistent with and have the same general character as laboratories and warehouses.”

“Data centers and laboratories are carefully engineered to maintain specific environmental conditions, like temperature, humidity and air quality, which are critical for their sensitive equipment,” the application states.

Plymouth Township Planning Commission Agency Chairman Gregory Sudell pressed O’Neill, asking him “why [do] you feel that this is similar to a laboratory?”

“I operate more laboratories than almost anybody else in the state of Pennsylvania,” O’Neill said, comparing similarities to needed materials and security protocols. The “difference is magnitude,” he said, underscoring that “these are giant laboratories, the manipulation of data.”

Plymouth Township resident Patti Smith countered that a data center would fall under the code’s “prohibited uses” category.

“It is a use that may be dangerous to public health, safety, morals or welfare,” Smith said as she gave public comment, “and I think, as you can see by the amount of people behind me, we’re not convinced that this would be in our welfare.”

O’Neill maintained that “technology is transforming industries.” He said he couldn’t overstate the impact that artificial intelligence will have on society, particularly education.

“What we need to do is transform our educational systems to embrace AI,” he said.

“Kids don’t need more AI,” said Plymouth Township resident Genevieve Boland, stressing “we need to pay our teachers more. We don’t need to give our students more AI.”

Not the first for region

This isn’t the first local proposal for a data center. In East Vincent Township, Chester County, a Sept. 10 town hall meeting featured plans for the former Pennhurst site that included a data center and tire-burning plant. The planning commission also opposed it, and area residents lambasted township supervisors for considering it.

Residents in Plymouth were critical in a fiery public comment session after O’Neill concluded his remarks and answered questions from planning agency members. More than 70 people were in attendance as residents vocalized a number of concerns, ranging from environmental to nuisance-related, as they asserted the addition of a data center would be detrimental to the area.

“I don’t think the township is prepared for a data center,” Smith said.

Addressing noise concerns, O’Neill said “our generators exercise for around an hour a week to an hour a month, and our turbines, which we would put inside … the courtyards of the building would maintain a decibel level of 60 to 65 decibels at the property line. So if you were driving by it would be like two people having a conversation outside.”

Plymouth Township resident Ardis Lukens addressed planning agency members at the podium repeatedly, clicking her pen to make a point as she raised concerns surrounding light and noise pollution.

“We’re going to hear this 24/7,” Lukens said, stressing that “we’re a very happy community. We don’t want this.”

Paul Tornetta, of Plymouth Meeting, expressed concerns over O’Neill’s presentation where he observed seven gas generators.

“That’s seven smoke stacks … based on my research that are 50 [feet], maybe 100 feet high. They’re going to emit nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and some other pollutants,” Tornetta said.

Tornetta and Smith agreed there’s a chance to develop the suburban tract of land situated along the Schuylkill River.

“This is like a once in a lifetime opportunity to rethink of what Cleveland-Cliffs was, and what it’s going to be for the neighbors right next door,” Smith said. “I’m one of them, and I’m not in favor of a data center being right next door.”

“This is Plymouth Township’s only chance to access prime riverfront crunch,” Tornetta said. “The river views, combined with a beautiful, upscale, multi-family retail, restaurants, and then even adjacent to that, that project will continue into our fields, with recreation. All good, wholesome development. If this project goes through, it’s forever going to condemn the whole corridor to an industrial corridor.”

Tornetta added that “I know it might be historic. That looks like rust belt to me,” and “I don’t see architecture in this.” He also disclosed he’s previously done business with O’Neill and called him a friend.

“I’m going to lose a friend over this, but I need to say this,” Tornetta said, to which O’Neill responded, “No, you’re not.”

O’Neill previously mentioned there were nearly three dozen homes across from the property. However, residents countered there are numerous more in the surrounding area as they expressed concern over the impact the project would have.

“I think it’s a very lovely neighborhood, and to hear the people here talking about the neighborhood as if it doesn’t matter, and if the people that live there don’t exist — to me, you can’t speak that way and actually have the community’s best interest at heart, and that should say the real motivation behind this data center,” a township resident said.

“From what I could hear, and the tone, and everything about this presentation, none of it said there was real compassion and interest in making our community better.”

O’Neill insisted that he “didn’t mean any disrespect to any of the neighborhoods” when going through his presentation. O’Neill then invited area residents to “walk through” existing facilities operated by the King of Prussia firm to assuage any of their concerns.

While the township planning commission denied the special exemption for MLP Ventures, O’Neill is expected to return to Plymouth Township to bring the project to the zoning board on Oct. 20. O’Neill declined comment when asked by MediaNews Group for reaction after the meeting.

The Plymouth Township Planning Agency issued a 4-0 rendering on Oct. 1. Members Neil Clark, Vernon Harper and Bryan Renneisen were absent from the meeting.