CHAMBERSBURG – Reports have shown businesses appear to be making a grab for land in Pennsylvania recently. 

The small towns near the Poconos are being purchased by companies. 

Apparently it’s a target-rich environment for data centers. 

Some farmers are really cashing out – think about $300,000 an acre. 

Attorney Clint Barkdoll said The Wall Street Journal profiled “several of these farmers that just cashed out for tens of millions of dollars selling their farm to data centers, and the article does a good job at pointing out the contrast. You can see where these farmers are. Someone knocks on the door and says, here’s $20 million, this is generational, life-changing money. You can’t fault the farmers, but in these small towns they’re seeing major pushback, saying we don’t want these data centers here because of all the problems that we’ve been discussing. But that area of Pennsylvania has easy access to energy and other things that these data centers want. And this article paints the picture. A lot more is coming to that region of Pennsylvania. So, something for us to watch.”

Pat Ryan of News Talk 103.7FM pointed out, “I find that very interesting too, because with all the money, I find it very interesting to see that beautiful, pristine area that so many from Philly and Pittsburgh run to, and out of New York as well. That they’re not doing some sort of run to the doors to make sure that that doesn’t upset their beautiful time at the lake.” 

Barkdoll said, “I think what’s happening, it ties into a discussion we’ve been having here. Some of these municipalities are profiled in this article; these are towns with 3,000, 4000 people. Much like we’ve discussed, they have no ordinances on the books to regulate this, so these centers come in, they spend tens of millions of dollars on a property, and submit a development plan. It’s too late to stop it now. Part of this would be do they get on board trying to enact ordinances to stop it? But I think these data centers are smartly going after areas where they know there’s no local ordinances to regulate this.”