Camelot for Children, a nonprofit organization that helps chronically and terminally ill children, has filed a legal zoning appeal seeking to challenge a proposed data center across the street from its South Allentown facility.<\/p>\n
Quantm LLC, a Philadelphia-based data center development company, has submitted plans to convert a 224,000-square-foot warehouse building on 2401 W. Emmaus Ave. into a data center.<\/a><\/p>\n The proposed data center is still awaiting a vote from the city\u2019s planning commission on whether or not it may move forward, but the city late last year determined that a data center is a permitted building type on the property.<\/p>\n In an Oct. 16, 2025, letter from Allentown zoning officer Michael Handzo, the city determined that a data center may be treated as a \u201cpermitted-by-right\u201d use in the I-3 zoning district, where the building is located.<\/p>\n The letter was among a number of documents received by The Morning Call in response to a Right-to-Know Law request seeking conversations between city staff, elected officials and the data center developers.<\/p>\n According to the letter, Allentown\u2019s existing zoning ordinance does not specifically address where data centers can go at all in the city, as it \u201cpredates the widespread emergence of data centers as known in their current form,\u201d Handzo wrote.<\/p>\n That means the city\u2019s zoning officer is tasked with determining the most \u201cclosely allied use\u201d that is covered by the zoning ordinance, which Handzo determined is manufacturing use. Manufacturing buildings are permitted by-right in the I-3 zoning district, according to the letter, and therefore data centers may also be built by-right in that district.<\/p>\n However, a lawyer for Camelot for Children is seeking to challenge that determination. \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n In an appeal letter dated July 6, Kevin Fogerty, an attorney representing Camelot, argues that there is a \u201cgross disparity\u201d between data center and manufacturing uses, so the city\u2019s determination that a data center is allowed by right at 2401 W Emmaus Ave. is inappropriate and incorrect.<\/p>\n \u201cData Centers do not remotely meet the definition of manufacturing as they do not treat or process raw products nor do they create articles or finished products from raw or prepared materials by giving them new forms or qualities,\u201d Fogerty wrote.<\/p>\n