Pennsylvania’s data center expansion is playing out statewide, from town councils to Harrisburg, to the backyards of homeowners fighting back against data centers encroaching on their properties.
While a new Quinnipiac University poll shows an overwhelming majority of Pennsylvanians oppose data center development in their communities, some are quite literally opening their doors to developers looking to build out the massive facilities on their land that store data, crunch numbers, and run artificial intelligence—and walking away multi-millionaires.
This story from the Wall Street Journal highlights how 96 families in Salem Township, Luzerne County, collectively sold about 1,700 acres to data center developer Quality Technology Services, which is owned by the investment firm Blackstone. The families sold for an average of $330,000 an acre and earned $5.5 million on average. The total sale price was $586 million.
These newly minted NEPA millionaires were hardly all land barons who cashed in sprawling expanses of property for, in the eyes of many of their neighbors, filthy data center lucre. From the story:
“Some sellers were of modest means. Several lived in double-wide trailers. Others were successful small-business owners and professionals. One was a felon who embezzled money from the bank where she worked. Another was a hard-rock drummer. To celebrate the haul, the sellers printed T-shirts: ‘1 DEAL OF A LIFETIME.’”
They might not be the last residents in the area to strike it rich from the data center boom. The WSJ reports that another 200 land owners nearby are in the process of negotiating a $1.3 billion deal.
You can keep track of data center development in your community through the independent Data Center Ledger.
