Data: I can’t live without it, and we’re about to find out how to live next door.
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission in December reviewed what it called the first hyperscale data center proposed for Lehigh or Northampton counties.
These sprawling, windowless warehouse centers house rows of high-speed servers that power almost everything the world does on phones and computers.
More are already planned.
The project, which was reviewed by the LVPC on December 16 and 18, consists of three data center buildings totaling 2.6 million square feet at the 194-acre former Air Products headquarters. The global industrial gas giant owns the land at 7300 Cetronia Road in Upper Macungie Township, according to Lehigh County property records.
Planning Commission staff revealed at the earlier meeting that a company called Atlas Industrial is proposing a new hyperscale data center in South Whitehall Township. WFMZ-TV 69 reports that these plans call for six buildings totaling 5.1 million square feet at 2493 N. Cedar Crest Blvd., near Parkland High School.
Data centers are not new, as the Lehigh Valley is already home to micro, small, medium and large-scale data centers ranging in size from an IT closet to hundreds of thousands of square feet.
The Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. announced on December 16 the sale of Tek Park in Upper Macungie, home to one of these small-scale centres. TierPoint, based in St. Louis, purchased the nine-building, 137-acre campus at 9999 Hamilton Blvd. for $175 million and said it has begun a 100-megawatt expansion of its existing data center, expected to be completed by the end of 2026, the LVEDC said.
According to the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, large-scale data centers represent clusters of buildings that can be home to multiple businesses located on the site.
It’s a type of industrial development that has captured the attention of planners from Lehigh County to the Easton area and the Slate Belt.
Municipal officials in Upper Macungie, Palmer, Forks and Upper Mount Bethel townships were all working on ordinances in 2025 to set ground rules for data centers — such as where they can be built.
Pennsylvania law requires every local government to prepare for any type of land use, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission says. For data centers, new proposals are coming in as those rules are being drawn up, such as the Air Products plan in Upper Macungie.
“The bottom line is that every community in Pennsylvania is required, under state law, to consider every conceivable land use,” the commission’s executive director, Becky Bradley, said last week. “Unfortunately, these land uses sometimes occur at a time when local governments are working on ordinances to manage those land uses.”
According to the LVPC, the layout and design of Air Products’ proposal is essentially the same as a 2.6 million square foot warehouse plan already approved by Upper Macungie for the site.
But the proposed shift to data centers provided few details during the planning commission’s Dec. 16 review, officials said.
“The submission does not provide sufficient information to assess the project’s full electricity demand or its long-term impacts on the regional electric grid,” the commission’s review letter said. It later adds: “The application lacks essential information about the project’s water requirements and cooling system.”
Air Products says the new development plan aims to “preserve flexibility and opportunity for the future redevelopment of our former headquarters,” and that the company believes it meets the municipality’s land use requirements. The proposal is expected to go before city officials for review on February 25.
“At this early stage, it is normal for certain details to be addressed as the process progresses,” a spokesperson told lehighvalleylive.com.
Both power and water consumption for cooling are major problems for data centers.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission is revising a model set of regulations that electric utilities must follow for data centers and other high-demand electricity users who want to connect to the electric grid. The goal is to determine how major loads are linked together and share costs.
That’s because federal utility regulators voted on Dec. 17 to effectively allow tech companies to connect massive data centers directly to power plants. It’s part of the Trump administration’s push to help the US become the world leader in artificial intelligence and revive domestic manufacturing.
When it comes to water use for cooling, some estimates show that a medium-sized data center uses the same water every day as 1,000 households. Emerging technology looks to tap wastewater – the liquid portion of sewage – instead of potable water for the necessary thermal energy transfer systems.
Concerns about artificial intelligence’s impact on the environment outweigh concerns about other industries worsening climate change, according to an October poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago Energy Policy Institute.
Developing hyperscale data centers comes with tradeoffs, according to a Lehigh Valley Planning Commission analysis that shows:
- Advantages such as property tax revenues, limited traffic generation, job creation with high wages and the provision of critical infrastructure.
- Challenges including issues with electricity consumption, water management (abstraction and drainage), environment (noise, air, heat) and scale/shape compatibility with the environment.
The Lehigh Valley is emerging as an attractive area for data centers due to its strong energy and transmission infrastructure, nearby major population centers and available space for development, according to LVPC Chief Community and Regional Planner Jill Seitz.
“Data centers are essential to meeting modern digital connectivity needs and demands,” she told the commission’s Comprehensive Planning Committee on December 16. “However, hyperscale facilities are having an unprecedented impact on communities’ utility infrastructure.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
