\u201cWe have great confidence in the developability of this site,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Draaisma was in the audience Tuesday during a Digital Infrastructure Panel hosted by Luzerne County Community College at its Scranton campus.<\/p>\n
Corscale\u2019s Daniel Brewster, senior project director, construction, management, and Charul Seoni, senior vice president of data center operations, sat on the panel.<\/p>\n
The discussion focused on what\u2019s needed to develop a skilled workforce for careers within digital infrastructure industries, like data centers. They talked about apprenticeships, higher education opportunities and the industry\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n
“This isn’t a one-of-us problem at this table. This is an all-of-us problem. And if we don’t collectively get together and all of us solve it, we’re going to be missing out on probably the single most important generational growth that our commonwealth has ever seen,\u201d said Warren Faust, president of the NEPA Building Trades.<\/p>\n
College presidents John Yudichak, Luzerne County Community College, and Jill Murray, Lackawanna College, as well as Bill Burke, Vice President of Enrollment and Student Success at Johnson College, sat on the panel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shortage is detrimental to the Pennsylvania economy. We have so much opportunity with data centers, with technology, with trades. We have a tremendous opportunity here to do something really special in terms of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania workforce on the defense side, on the technology side,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n
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Bill Burke, left, vice president of Enrollment & Student Success at Johnson College, John Yudichak, Luzerne County Community College President, and Jill Murray, Lackawanna College president, discuss how higher education is providing training to skilled workers.<\/p>\n
Aimee Dilger \/ WVIA News<\/p>\n
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Corscale\u2019s Charul Seoni, left, senior vice president of data center operations, listens as Daniel Brewster, Corscale’s senior project director, construction, management, speaks during a panel discussion in Scranton.<\/p>\n
Aimee Dilger \/ WVIA News <\/p>\n
Who is Corscale?<\/p>\n
After the panel, WVIA News sat down with Draaisma.<\/p>\n
Corscale runs three data centers in Northern Virginia with two under construction. Draaisma said the company has six projects across the country in active pre-development, including Project Gravity.<\/p>\n
“The way this works is we are owner, operator, and developer, and then we will have a hyperscale tenant who then puts their equipment inside the data center that we operate on their behalf,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Project Gravity was principally permitted under Archbald’s previous zoning rules and did not have to go through the borough’s conditional use process for zoning approval. The land was owned by Western Hospitality Partners, operating as Archbald Developer 25 LLC.<\/p>\n
Draaisma said Corscale has owned the property since late 2025.<\/p>\n
Archbald 25 Developer LLC sold the property to US Gravity Purchaser LLC on Dec. 23, according to a Lackawanna County deed. Gravity Purchaser is associated with Affinius Capital from San Antonio, Texas, which is Corscale\u2019s investment partner.<\/a><\/p>\n Draaisma said Corscale is in active and serious conversations with a hyperscale tenant.<\/p>\n Hyperscalers require massive infrastructure for data processing and storage, like cloud computing.<\/p>\n The campus\u2019 current plan remains in place \u2014 five one-story buildings and two two-story buildings, he said. But that eventual tenant will drive a lot of the design decisions, he said, including water usage.<\/p>\n “In this particular case, the path that we’re on is closed-loop cooling,” he said.<\/p>\n Closed-loop cooling recycles water throughout a system and industry experts say it uses less water than other systems.<\/p>\n Draaisma also said they plan to use a fraction of the diesel-powered backup generators allowed on site.<\/p>\n Adhering to standards<\/p>\n Erik Draaisma, executive vice president business development for Corscale<\/a>.<\/p>\n Draaisma said Archbald\u2019s zoning requirements are strict and that they will operate within those rules.<\/p>\n Corscale is also the parent company of Patrinely Group, a major commercial real estate developer.<\/p>\n “We have a big reputation to protect. So staying within those ordinances is how we do business,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n WVIA News asked Draaisma about Gov. Josh Shapiro\u2019s GRID Standards<\/a> \u2014 short for the Governor\u2019s Responsible Infrastructure Development \u2014 which force data center developers to comply with new planning and operating standards.<\/p>\n “There was nothing in there that really caught us off guard, and nothing in there that we weren’t already planning on doing,” he said.<\/p>\n The governor was in Scranton on Friday<\/a>. When asked about data centers, he said the \u201cgenesis\u201d of his executive order was listening to Pennsylvanians across the state.<\/p>\n “There was one community in particular that had probably the most impact on my thinking on this issue, and that was the community of Archbald,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I saw and listened to local leaders feel as though they were getting bulldozed by developers and that they were losing power to these big, powerful corporate interests, I said no way, and so we rebalanced that equation.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Erik](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790117530_219_.jpeg\"\/)
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