Amid String Of Rejections, Another Data Center Proposed In West Conshohocken

WEST CONSHOHOCKEN, PA — West Conshohocken's borough council unanimously rejected the zoning relief application from data center developer Brian O'Neill Tuesday night to build another massive hyperscale facility near the Schuylkill River.

The council voted 5-0 to oppose the Innovation 411 application and recommend that the zoning hearing board oppose it during the next scheduled meeting on Nov. 16.

The proposal calls for industrial scale development of a 424 megawatt data center on a vacant 60 acre site along on Front Street.

Notably, the vote Tuesday specifically addressed the zoning relief surrounding a potential application, and was not a rejection of the data center itself. The proposal itself will still be considered at future meetings.

While West Conshohocken does have an ordinance permitting data centers, the construction they want would need to bypass regulations regarding the flood plain and the steep grade of the slopes on the property in question.

This plan is separate from two other major proposals by O'Neill which it is squashed between: the data center "cluster" on Renaissance Boulevard in King of Prussia which has been rejected by Upper Merion township, and the proposal at the former Cleveland Cliffs site in Plymouth Township.

While the Plymouth proposal is still ongoing and the KOP proposal is still tied up with lawsuits, both have faced massive, bipartisan opposition from local officials, residents, businesses, and neighborhood activist groups.

The 424 megawatt number describes how much power the proposal would draw from the local electrical grid. It's equivalent to the power needed to operate about 424,000 homes, according to standards used by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.