This year, Lancastrians learned that two large data centers will be built in the city, near F&M’s campus. Machine Investment Group and Chirisa Technology Parks will develop the sites to support CoreWeave, a cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) company providing capacity for the recent growth of generative AI, such as ChatGPT. The data centers’ developers argue that the data centers boost the local economy, but members of the Lancaster community remain unconvinced.
The two CoreWeave data centers are planned for sites at 216 Greenfield Road and 1375 Harrisburg Pike. The latter location on Harrisburg Pike, a mile from campus, is expected to be central to CoreWeave’s data center capacity, with over 300 megawatts (MW) of capacity to be used for AI. Developers emphasize that the data centers will provide good-paying jobs, offering approximately 600 skilled jobs during the construction phase and roughly 175 full-time operational roles. They add that the project has already contributed approximately $80 million to the local economy. CoreWeave also frames the project as critical to U.S. tech leadership.
Local and state officials have been strongly supportive of the project. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro released a statement backing the data centers, writing that “Pennsylvania is competing again and bringing in billions of dollars in new investment to the Commonwealth to support our technology sector, and CoreWeave’s $6 billion investment will continue to build on that work — creating good-paying jobs as Pennsylvania workers build, maintain, and operate a new AI data center in Lancaster County.”
Lancastrians have voiced numerous concerns. At a recent planning commission meeting, city residents raised their fears about the impact of large-scale data center development on the city. In particular, residents raised concerns that the project will lead to noise pollution, higher carbon emissions, place strain on the electrical grid, and raise energy costs. “It’s a huge power customer that’s being added to an electrical grid that’s not that large. So the concerns we have are, you know, economic and environmental,” said Lancaster resident Emma Burgess. Local resident Frank Arcelo took matters into his own hands, filing an appeal to the zoning office’s decision. Arcelo hopes to win his appeal to ensure there are safeguards in place to address these concerns. He said to WGAL8 that the process he seeks “will indeed put guardrails on the data center to make sure that they, they supply their own electricity so that our electricity bills don’t go up to make sure that they manage the noise and the heat and the potential diesel pollution in a way that doesn’t affect the neighbors and in fact, the entire area, the entire region.”
At present, Phase One of the data center project is under construction, while Phase Two is before the city planning commission for approval. Lancaster City Council President Amanda Bakay provided an update on Phase Two at the city council’s most recent meeting on October 28th. President Bakay said the city was working on approval for Phase Two of the project, but had yet to receive a community benefit agreement from the data centers’ developers. The agreement is expected to include commitments on water use, noise mitigation, and air quality from the data centers’ developers. She added that the city expects to have that agreement by the next regular meeting of the City Council on November 11th, where Lancastrians can share their views on the project. After approvals, Phase Two will be built, and is expected to be online by the end of 2027.
Freshman Milind Gavanker is a Staff Writer. Their email is mgavanka@fandm.edu.