The West Hills area could soon become home to another data center, this one on a former rail car plant in Stowe Township.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced last week that Nichol Avenue McKees Rocks LLC was among 11 projects chosen to receive a total of more than $39 million through the PA SITES (Pennsylvania Strategic Investments to Enhance Sites) program.
A news release stated that Nichol Avenue McKees Rocks LLC would receive $6 million to put toward the second phase of a project to develop a distribution and logistics park on a 72-acre brownfield site, the former Pressed Steel Car Co. McKees Rocks Works Plant, in Stowe Township.
PA SITES is a state-funded program designed to create more shovel-ready industrial sites to help attract businesses, investment and jobs to Pennsylvania.
According to the governor’s office news release, the local $6 million PA SITES funding would be used for the acquisition of land along the rail spur, soil screening and disposal, rail spur reconstruction, stormwater controls, utility relocation, sewer line replacement and remediation.
The news release said nothing specific about how the Stowe property would be used, but township Commissioner Cheryl McDermott confirmed Monday that SunCap Industries, which is developing the site, wants to build a data center.
McDermott said she’s excited about the prospect and said SunCap first mentioned that potential use “a while ago” – before news of the grant surfaced.
“This is really our last developmental property,” she said of the site.
While some have voiced concerns over potential energy and water consumption and other environmental issues associated with data center operations, McDermott said she’s been researching the topic and thinks it would be a very positive development for the community or its residents.
“And once they get that building up, it might open that area up for other things,” McDermott said.
At this point, the township zoning ordinance does not allow for data centers to operate, but that could change shortly. The township Board of Commissioners, at its 6 p.m. Tuesday workshop meeting, will consider a motion to advertise for amending the zoning ordinance to permit data centers to operate in the township’s general industrial area.
McDermott said SunCap representatives are expected to attend Tuesday’s meeting, which will be held in the township Municipal Building, 555 Broadway Ave., to discuss plans for the Nichol Avenue property.
The motion to advertise for amending the zoning ordinance also would include amending an ordinance to modify the maximum building height in the general industrial area.
The current maximum height allowed in that district is 50 feet, although that doesn’t apply to light standards, cranes and other similar accessory structures associated with an intermodal rail facility.
The Stowe Township property tabbed for the grant-funded data center is the former site of the Pressed Steel Car Co. plant.
The property later was owned by McKees Rocks Industrial Enterprise and was sold to SunCap Industries in 2023.
At the time of that purchase, township officials said the property would house three new buildings: an office building, a warehouse and “flex” space, with that space offering short-term leases and a communal area to be used by other businesses within the same building.
Matt Virgin of SunCap Property Group told Gazette 2.0 – the predecessor to West Hills Gazette – in the fall of 2023 that the site was being built for light industrial use but that SunCap did not have a user lined up for the site.
The property has received grants prior to the SITES grant. In 2022, State Sen. Wayne Fontana helped secure a $1 million grant through the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program to develop the property.
At the time, township officials had hopes that the project would be finished sometime in 2023, but that wasn’t the case.
Shapiro said in a news release announcing the grants that when he took office, he would make Pennsylvania competitive again.
“And now we’re not just competing, we’re winning,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro said the SITES awards will help communities across the state attract new businesses, create good-paying jobs and lay the foundation for long-term economic growth.
If the Stowe data center project comes to fruition, it would be at least the second data center operating in the West Hills. Another center, operated by Arden Data Centers, is located on McMichael Road in Robinson Township.
While data centers may provide handfuls of jobs, they ultimate will result in higher costs for the electrical infrastructure and distribution.
This means that everyone will be paying more for electricity, in order to essentially fund the increasing wealth of the already rich technocrats in an era of increasing wealth disparity. The working class and poor, those whose budgets pay proportionately the most for essential goods and services, will be hit the hardest.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Our electric bills are already rising every month. Data centers are ugly, noisy pollution hubs that contribute nothing to society (oh wow, you can generate an image of a highland cow). It’s not worth it for a handful of jobs. They should go back to the idea of a mixed-use space.