{"id":226754,"date":"2026-06-24T11:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/226754\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T11:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:29:08","slug":"lehigh-valley-planners-still-troubled-by-project-atlas-data-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/226754\/","title":{"rendered":"Lehigh Valley planners still troubled by Project Atlas data center"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are still questions from the public and concerns from members of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission\u2019s Comprehensive Planning Committee about the proposed Project Atlas data center<\/a> in South Whitehall Township.<\/p>\n

The plan received another look Tuesday from the LVPC, and while there wasn\u2019t as much pushback as in January, remaining concerns cover noise, traffic and wastewater.<\/p>\n

The second plan submitted to the LVPC included a scaled-back version of the massive complex, along with addressing comments from the initial review. At Tuesday\u2019s virtual meeting, the committee passed the draft letter to the township for consideration by the full LVPC on Thursday.<\/p>\n

If approved, the letter with the LVPC\u2019s comments on the plan would be sent to South Whitehall, which has final say on the proposal. The township\u2019s planning commission has a meeting scheduled July 9<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Project Atlas is proposed for a 410-acre site at 2493 N. Cedar Crest Blvd., across from Parkland High School. The 1.5 million-square-foot complex includes three data center buildings, a 40,680-square-foot administrative building, a 39,167-square-foot warehouse and an electric substation.<\/p>\n

Committee and community members expressed concerns regarding low-frequency noise\/vibrations, impacts on Parkland students, potential shifts from a closed-loop to an evaporative cooling system in the future, and truck traffic volumes.<\/p>\n

Two amendments were added to the draft letter regarding the traffic and sound issues.<\/p>\n

Committee member Sunny Ghai asked about potential traffic volumes, which could generate an average of 1,154 weekday trips.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I was a little surprised to see the amount of truck traffic for a data center because I just envisioned this being a building with a lot of servers and computers,\u201d he said. \u201cThat number just seems surprisingly high.\u201d<\/p>\n

LVPC Transportation Planner Evan Gardi said a lot of that will be from construction, which would last about four years and employ 400-500 workers.<\/p>\n

An amendment to the letter urged the township to work with the developer and Parkland School District on maintaining smooth traffic flow during pickup and dropoff times.<\/p>\n

The second amendment was about exploring stricter standards and enforcement procedures for low-frequency mechanical vibrations and how they might affect nearby students. Committee member Brett Webber was worried about whether the federal Environmental Protection Agency would enforce it, and said township ordinances are \u201cway behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf kids can\u2019t concentrate, because there\u2019s so much vibration, who is to blame?\u201d Webber said. \u201cDo we take any responsibility for that, or just the township? Some of the recent research has indicated that those low-level vibrations are perceptible and affect human health within a mile of a project.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact the project is to be built on farmland was frustrating to Webber.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll just forgive the cynicism here,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just that we have a plan that consistently is sort of sending farmland to industrial development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vice Chair Chris Amato asked about the closed-loop cooling system that Project Atlas would use. While that would minimize water usage because it would be recycled internally, Amato wondered if there still could be some discharge and what pollutants could be in the wastewater.<\/p>\n

LVPC Chief Community and Regional Planner Jill Seitz said the township is seeking answers to those questions.<\/p>\n

Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are still questions from the public and concerns from members of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission\u2019s Comprehensive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,3069,433,157,182,139,9790,28,664,432],"class_list":["post-226754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-data-center","tag-lehigh-county","tag-lehigh-valley","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-parkland-area","tag-pennsylvania","tag-south-whitehall-township","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226754","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=226754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}