A developer tied to data center projects in Archbald and Blakely now proposes to build four data centers in Dickson City across hundreds of mountainside acres above Business Route 6.

Dickson City Development LLC submitted four sets of sketch plans to Dickson City on Nov. 26 seeking to build four data center buildings across undeveloped land above Business Route 6, spanning from the Blakely border to near the residential housing on Bell Mountain toward the Scranton border and behind the former Kmart. Dickson City Development LLC filed a certificate of organization with the Pennsylvania Department of State on Nov. 27 using the address 99 Power Blvd., Archbald, which is the business address of Kriger Construction Inc. and its affiliated NEPA Concrete & Asphalt plant. Jim Marzolino, the president of Kriger, is involved with two data center projects in Archbald along the Eynon Jermyn Road and was the co-developer in a proposal to build a data center campus in Blakely, though that application was subsequently withdrawn.

Three of the proposed two-story data centers in Dickson City would have 147,000-square-foot footprints, and they would be under 70-feet-tall, said Dickson City Borough Manager Cesare Forconi. The size of the fourth data center was illegible in the plans, he said. The four data centers would be built across a roughly 1.5-mile stretch above Business Route 6.

There are now 54 data center buildings proposed for the Midvalley region alone with 43 buildings across five campuses in Archbald, four buildings in Dickson City and seven buildings across two campuses in Jessup. A developer also plans to build a large data center campus in the North Pocono region along Interstate 380 in Clifton and Covington townships.

Projects affiliated with Marzolino and his firms account for 11 of those data centers, with one giant data center in Archbald having a footprint akin to four smaller buildings.

Those projects are:

Project Gravity: A data center campus would be built on just over 186 acres between Business Route 6 and Eynon Jermyn Road, with entrances on both roads. Proposed by New York City-based Western Hospitality Partners, operating as Archbald 25 Developer LLC, Project Gravity would have at least six two-story data center buildings, each with a 135,000-square-foot footprint. The same developer has proposed data centers in Indiana and Illinois. The project includes purchasing the Valley View Estates mobile home park, displacing the park’s roughly three dozen residents. Western Hospitality Partners — Jermyn LLC signed a memorandum of purchase and sale agreement Oct. 15, 2024, to buy the 186.21-acre parcel from property owner Five Up Realty LLC, 805 Enterprise St., Dickson City. Marzolino signed on behalf of Five Up. The agreement, which was recorded with the Lackawanna County Recorder of Deeds on Oct. 21, 2024, did not include a sale price. Five Up Realty bought the land from Louis and Dominick DeNaples’ Dunmore-based D&L Realty Company in May 2023 for $825,000, according to a property transaction recorded May 15, 2023.

Project Boson: Formerly called the Archbald Data & Energy Center, Project Boson will remove the Highway Auto Parts auto salvage yard on Eynon Jermyn Road and build a nearly 620,000-square-foot data center in its place, according to a land development plan obtained by The Times-Tribune via a Right to Know Law request. The project initially proposed building three data centers, each under 70 feet tall with a roughly 150,000-square-foot footprint, but it subsequently merged those buildings into one larger facility. PDC Realty LLC acquired the  auto salvage yard for $1,575,000, totaling about 83.5 acres across 17 parcels, according to a property transaction recorded Aug. 8. Marzolino signed an accompanying mortgage as the manager of PDC, which used the address 99 Power Blvd., Archbald.

Marzolino also partnered with businessman Alpesh “Al” Patel, known for his Dunmore-based Al’s Quick Stop convenience store chain, to build up to four data centers in Blakely on land off Business Route 6 and Terrace Drive, but the men withdrew a request for a zoning change to facilitate the development in September as they faced significant community opposition that made it unlikely they would receive the needed zoning relief. Blakely subsequently amended its zoning in November to address data centers, designating them as conditional uses in an overlay district in the northwest corner of the town bordering Dickson City. The Dickson City Development’s easternmost site borders that land in Blakely.

Because of their high electricity demands, data center proposals follow the high-tension power lines slicing through the valley, and the Dickson City projects continues that trend, with those same power lines running through the properties targeted for development.

According to the four sketch plans described by Forconi, the data centers would be built on four parcels owned by: HFS Realty LLC, Circle Drive-In Inc., Fore Up Realty and Mountainview DC Realty. The drive-in’s parcel does not include the drive-in itself, but rather about 50 acres of adjacent land.

Fore Up Realty’s land includes the highly visible construction project along Cold Spring Road near Wegman’s, which involves plans to build a Wawa, and continues for more than 300 acres along the mountain. Marzolino most recently signed an assignment of rents and leases as the manager of Fore Up in March, according to the document recorded with the Lackawanna County Recorder of Deeds on March 25.

Marzolino did not respond to a request for comment by press time Friday.

To the west of Fore Up’s property, including the land behind the former Kmart on Business Route 6, Mountainview DC Realty LLC owns 200-plus acres. Alfred Kriger Jr., who is Marzolino’s uncle based on Lackawanna County’s marriage license database, is the president of Mountainview. Kriger signed a right-of-way agreement with PPL as the president of Mountainview last year, according to the document recorded Oct. 4, 2024. He previously proposed in 2021 to build about 300 townhouses on that land, but that never materialized.

The new data center proposals come as Dickson City works to amend its zoning to address fast-growing industry.

The borough began the zoning process Nov. 16 with a public notice in The Times-Tribune advertising a proposed zoning amendment to make data centers special exceptions in Dickson City’s light manufacturing zoning districts, which encompass Enterprise Street near Eagle Land and undeveloped land southeast of Railroad Street. Special exceptions require developers to testify at a public hearing in front of the Dickson City Zoning Hearing Board while adhering to criteria established in the legislation, according to a draft of the ordinance.

The ordinance would not allow data centers where Dickson City Development wants to build them, and in a phone interview Thursday, Forconi referenced a legal precedent that could apply the new zoning standards to the proposals because the borough had already begun the zoning amendment process when it received the plans.

Borough council initially held a public hearing Tuesday on the proposed ordinance and will hold a second hearing Jan. 20 at 5:30 p.m. at the Borough Building, 901 Enterprise St., Dickson City, according to a public notice published Thursday in The Times-Tribune.