The public will hear testimony this week on an 18-building data center campus in Archbald, as well as an ordinance regulating the data center industry in Dickson City.
The data center campus has the most individual buildings of the six campuses the borough has received plans for, and is the second largest in terms of size. It is proposed on nearly 17.5 million square feet of land just north of Staback Park between Eynon Jermyn Road and Business Route 6. Archbald Borough Council will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Valley View High School auditorium, 1 Columbus Drive, Archbald, to consider a conditional use application from its developer, Delaware-based Archbald I LLC.
Dickson City Borough Council will listen to testimony on a proposed ordinance regulating data centers and restricting where developers can build them. The public hearing is at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Dickson City Civic Center, 935 Albert St. Doors will open at 5:15, and council will hold a special meeting at 7 potentially to enact the ordinance, according to public notices published in The Times-Tribune on Jan. 29 and Feb. 4.
Borough officials first heard testimony on the ordinance during a Jan. 20 hearing where two dozen residents raised concerns over a proposal to put data centers around Bell Mountain. Council opted not to vote on the legislation following about 2½ hours of testimony, instead deciding to continue the meeting.
Archbald
Archbald received a conditional use application Dec. 16 from Archbald I LLC, 108 Lakeland Ave., Dover, Delaware, according to the borough’s website and the 163-page application package. The developer initially filed a zoning permit application with the borough Oct. 22.
The campus would feature 18 two-story data centers, each approximately 154,850 square feet per floor and about 90 feet high across a 400.76-acre site. There will be three entrances along Business Route 6 and two along Eynon Jermyn Road, according to the application.
The “data hall” in each building, or the space dedicated for computing and networking equipment including servers, storage systems and network switches organized in racks, would be about 147,000 square feet per floor, according to the application. Each building would also have an “office/support facility” of about 7,850 square feet per floor, with amenities such as network operations centers, offices, conference rooms and bathrooms.
Every data center will have its own 74,970-square-foot generator yard, and there will be three electric substations on the property.
The campus will be lined by anti-climb fencing that’s at least 8 feet tall, along with controlled vehicular gates and a 24/7 staffed guard station at primary entry points, according to the application.
Although there were no specific tenants secured as of mid-December, Archbald I LLC estimates up to 30 employees working the largest shifts at each building as the data centers would operate 24/7, 365 days.
Archbald I’s application does not provide specifics on how much water or electricity it will use, though the application reports the developer agrees to provide documentation from PPL Electric Utilities, Pennsylvania American Water and the Lackawanna River Basin Sewer Authority.
The conditional use hearing Wednesday will play out like a quasi-judicial proceeding. The developer will call witnesses to testify, and those witnesses can be cross examined by borough officials and relevant parties. Residents will have the opportunity to testify as well, and council will eventually vote to approve or deny the conditional use application, though that vote is unlikely to occur Wednesday.
Archbald held its first data center conditional use hearing Jan. 28 for the 14-building Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus, but council and the developer, Cornell Realty Management, agreed to adjourn the hearing after two hours. During those two hours, Cornell only presented one of its five expert witnesses, and residents did not get the opportunity to testify, setting the stage for what will likely be multiple hearings.
The borough has not scheduled a second hearing for Wildcat Ridge.
There are 51 individual data center buildings planned across Archbald’s six proposed data center campuses.
Dickson City
Dickson City Borough Council will consider limiting data centers to its light manufacturing districts Thursday while attorneys for a local data center developer argue they already have zoning approval to build multiple facilities above Business Route 6 off Cold Spring Road.
Unlike most local communities who amended their zoning to address data centers, Dickson City proposes to make the industry a special exception, not a conditional use, in its light manufacturing zones, which encompass Enterprise Street near Eagle Lane and undeveloped land southeast of Railroad Street.
The key difference is who approves or denies special exceptions. Conditional uses go before borough council, but special exceptions go before zoning hearing boards, meaning the Dickson City Zoning Hearing Board could eventually decide whether individual data center projects move forward in the borough. Special exceptions and conditional uses both require a developer to attend a public hearing while also adhering to requirements established in the proposed zoning ordinance.
If council adopts the new zoning amendment, it would not permit any projects to move forward with development, but it would establish the requirements and conditions needed for the zoning hearing board to approve a special exception request for a data center.
Attorneys for Dickson City Development LLC — a firm linked to Kriger Construction Inc. President Jim Marzolino, who has been involved in data center proposals in Archbald and Blakely — argued last month that Dickson City’s zoning already allows data centers in its highway commercial zoning districts due to language permitting “data processing and record storage” in the zones. The attorneys contend that allows them to build at least three data centers near Cold Spring Road, above the site of a proposed Wawa.
In lieu of erecting data centers lower on the mountain, Dickson City Development is alternatively seeking a 403-acre data center overlay district that would permit a data center campus around Bell Mountain. The proposal did not include the specific number of data centers nor how tall they would be, but each proposed building would be about 150,000 square feet.
The proposal to build data centers around Bell Mountain drew significant pushback from the community during the Jan. 20 hearing. Two dozen residents testified, and virtually all 24 speakers opposed data centers, worrying about noise pollution and the acoustics of the valley, significant water and electricity use, and deforestation of the mountain and how it would affect both flooding and wildlife. Bell Mountain residents also spoke, fearing data centers near their homes.
Representatives for the developer argued that the locations where Dickson City wants to allow data centers were too small and lacked the utilities to support them.
Hearings use larger venues
Both boroughs opted for larger venues after residents packed previous meetings.
The Valley View High School auditorium has become the new backdrop for data center hearings in Archbald following a Nov. 24 meeting when council amended Archbald’s zoning to address data centers. Residents filled the Borough Building’s council chambers that night, sitting on the floor and spilling out into the hallway. Council held a previous hearing and subsequent special meeting in the basement of the St. Thomas Aquinas Church basement.
Borough resident Carolyn Mizanty concludes her comments at the podium during the data center meeting at the Archbald Borough Building in Archbald Monday, November 24, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
At least 300 residents attended a similar public hearing on a conditional use application for the Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus, which proposes building 14 202,340-square-foot data centers above Business Route 6 and continuing up Wildcat Road, or Route 247.
Lackawanna County controller and president of the Keyser Valley Neighborhood Association Gary DiBileo asks the crowd to raise their hand if they oppose data centers during the Archbald Borough Council’s public hearing regrading the proposed Wildcat Ridge campus at Valley View High School on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
In Dickson City, a standing-room-only crowd of 200-plus residents flooded the Borough Building for a data center public hearing last month.
An overflow crowd of at least 200 residents packs into the Dickson City Borough Building for a public hearing Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in the Dickson City. (FRANK WILKES LESNEFSKY / STAFF PHOTO)