![\"Power](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/STT-L-POWERPLANTS-0417-02.jpg\")
Power lines span across the ridge of Bell Mountain in Dickson City, where the developement of three power plants are proposed to be built along Business Route 6 Thursday, April 16, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)<\/p>\nOne week after applying to build a power plant on Eynon Jermyn Road in Archbald, companies tied to a local data center developer applied to build at least three more power plants along Bell Mountain above Business Route 6 in Dickson City.<\/p>\n
Three limited liability companies affiliated with Kriger Construction Inc. \u2014 whose president, Jim Marzolino, applied to build a 400-megawatt power plant and nearly 620,000-square-foot data center in Archbald, as well as proposing data centers on Bell Mountain in Dickson City \u2014 filed three zoning hearing applications with Dickson City on March 19 for power generation facilities spanning just over 1 mile of Bell Mountain. One of those power plants would be directly behind the Circle Drive-In; the Midvalley landmark would sell some of its land for the power plant, according to the application.<\/p>\n
The Dickson City Zoning Hearing Board will hear the applications May 13 at 7 p.m. in the Borough Building, 901 Enterprise St., borough Manager Cesare Forconi said in a text. Archbald also scheduled a conditional use hearing before borough council on Marzolino\u2019s power plant in the borough on April 27 at 5 p.m. in the Valley View High School auditorium, 1 Columbus Drive, Archbald.<\/p>\n
Operating as Dickson City Power One LLC, Dickson City Power Two LLC and Dickson City Power Three LLC, all using the address 99 Power Blvd., Archbald, the companies are seeking special exceptions to develop the power generation facilities. They share an Archbald address with Kriger Construction and its affiliated NEPA Concrete & Asphalt plant; Kriger Construction Vice President Dave Stiles\u2019 email address is the provided contact for all three applications along with Kriger Construction\u2019s office number, and attached $575 checks for each application are from Kriger Construction.<\/p>\n
Public and private power generation facilities are special exceptions in the residential open space zoning district encompassing the majority of Bell Mountain, according to Dickson City\u2019s zoning ordinance and map. As special exceptions, the projects must receive approval from Dickson City\u2019s zoning hearing board.<\/p>\n
Another firm linked to Marzolino, Dickson City Development LLC, 99 Power Blvd., Archbald, is challenging Dickson City\u2019s February zoning amendment regulating data centers in county court, asking a judge to annul the zoning ordinance and remand it back to the borough because it is exclusionary to data centers. The company had submitted plans in November to build data centers in Dickson City above Business Route 6. During a Jan. 21 public hearing in Dickson City, attorneys for the project presented two proposals for data centers. The attorneys contended Dickson City\u2019s zoning allowed them to develop three data centers above the site of a proposed Wawa on the mountain above Cold Spring Road, though borough officials disagreed when they applied stricter standards to data centers preventing those developments in February. Alternatively, the developer also submitted a zoning ordinance to the borough requesting a 403-acre data center overlay district that would have permitted a data center campus around Bell Mountain.<\/p>\n
The new applications provide little information on the power generation facilities, only showing a footprint of each building.<\/p>\n
The easternmost power plant, applied for by Dickson City Power Two, would be less than 1,000 feet from the Circle Drive-In\u2019s movie screens. The application references an \u201cequitable interest\/executed agreement of sale\u201d with Scranton Circle Drive In Company Inc.<\/p>\n
Just west of that, above Cold Spring Road, Dickson City Power One\u2019s application depicts two large building footprints and a smaller one. It was unclear Thursday if those plans encompass multiple power plants. That land is owned by Fore Up Realty, 805 Enterprise St., Dickson City, according to the application; Marzolino most recently signed an assignment of rents and leases as the manager of Fore Up last year, according to the document recorded with the Lackawanna County recorder of deeds on March 25, 2025.<\/p>\n
Power lines span across the ridge of Bell Mountain in Dickson City, where the developement of three power plants are proposed to be built along Business Route 6 Thursday, April 16, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)<\/p>\n
Farther west, directly behind the former Kmart that is now storage units at 1011 Business Route 6, Dickson City Power Three\u2019s plans depict \u201ca 775,000-square-foot power plant area.\u201d It is the only application of the three to include square footage. According to the application, Mountainview DC Realty LLC, 855 Enterprise St., Dickson City, is the property owner. Alfred Kriger Jr., who is Marzolino\u2019s uncle based on Lackawanna County\u2019s marriage license database, is the president of Mountainview. He signed a right-of-way agreement with PPL as the president of Mountainview in 2024, 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.<\/p>\n
Jacob Rosenstein, 99 Power Blvd., Archbald, is listed as the organizer of Dickson City Power One, Two and Three, according to Dec. 10 certificates of organization filed with the Department of State and obtained by The Times-Tribune. Rosenstein is also the organizer of Dickson City Development LLC, according to its Nov. 26 filing with the Department of State.<\/p>\n
Attempts to reach Rosenstein, Marzolino and Stiles were unsuccessful Thursday.<\/p>\n
Attorney Michael Mey of the Dunmore-based Mey & Sulla law firm is the attorney for all three applications. Mey is also the contact for the Essential Energy power plant in Archbald, represented Marzolino in Blakely, and filed the zoning challenge in Dickson City on behalf of Dickson City Development LLC. Reached by phone Thursday, Mey declined to comment on the new applications.<\/p>\n
Marzolino signed a zoning application for the Archbald power plant on March 12, seeking conditional use approval for a 491,811-square-foot electric power generating plant on the west side of Eynon Jermyn Road. The proposed power plant site is across from the Highway Auto Parts junkyard where Marzolino applied last year to build a nearly 620,000-square-foot data center known as Project Boson. The Archbald power plant would be up to 55 feet tall and consist of four 66,000-square-foot turbine pads, according to the filing. A subsequent March 26 conditional use application filed with Archbald describes it as an approximately 400-megawatt electric power generating plant.\u00a0By comparison, the Lackawanna Energy Center natural gas-fired power plant in Jessup produces 1,485 megawatts.<\/p>\n
Stiles signed the conditional use application as the applicant.<\/p>\n
Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan, who frequently speaks out against data centers at public hearings, including in Archbald and Dickson City, railed against the new power plant proposals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a question of not how much power these places can generate, but how much of the community we\u2019re willing to give up to generate it, and that\u2019s really the whole question here with power plants and data centers,\u201d Gaughan said. \u201cIt\u2019s sad to watch the entire valley be handed over to these billionaire developers and people who are going to make a quick buck, and send the profits someplace else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gaughan questioned how the power plants would benefit the Midvalley, contending they benefit only developers and data centers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have yet to see how the community benefits in any way, shape or form from this exploitation that they\u2019re trying to put on the people,\u201d Gaughan said. \u201cIt\u2019s devastating, but we have to band together like we have with the people of the Midvalley and the Upvalley and all over Lackawanna County and continue to fight this because we cannot let this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One week after applying to build a power plant on Eynon Jermyn Road in Archbald, companies tied to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2117,2116,1099,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-167939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-archbald","tag-data-centers","tag-dickson-city","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}