The battle over data centers in Montgomery County has entered a critical new phase, writes Justin Heinze for Patch.
Eight projects backed by developer Brian O’Neill and his King of Prussia firm MLP Ventures are now formally on the table, targeting sites near Renaissance Park, Swedeland Road, Horizon Drive, and River Road.
Together, they represent more than 4 million square feet of proposed AI infrastructure.
O’Neill is the same developer who withdrew a similar proposal for the former Cleveland-Cliffs steel site in Plymouth Township last November under intense public pressure, only to resubmit it months later.
What has sharpened the urgency is the timing. The developers filed the proposals roughly 10 days before the township enacted a new data center ordinance requiring 1,000-foot residential buffers, noise controls, and water usage restrictions.
Under Pennsylvania land use law, those protections will not apply to O’Neill’s projects. Planning commission hearings have already been postponed at his request.
Residents raising alarms for months now have a growing body of evidence to point to. Across the country, communities that once welcomed data centers are living with consequences they did not anticipate.
In Vineland, New Jersey, just two hours from King of Prussia, a video of the nonstop noise from a newly operational 2.4 million square foot center went viral earlier this year.
Residents describe the sound as maddening. The problem may be worse than conventional monitoring can capture.
Researchers are studying infrasound, frequencies so low they fall below the human hearing threshold. Infrasound can still be felt, with some residents linking it to headaches, insomnia, and nausea.
Because most noise ordinances address things like noisy block parties rather than industrial facilities, most complaints go nowhere.
The power grid concerns are not theoretical either. This month, nearly 50,000 Lake Tahoe residents learned their electric utility is ending service to redirect power capacity to data centers in the region.
They are now looking for a replacement source ahead of a 2027 deadline. As one resident put it: “It’s like we don’t exist.”
The planning commission hearings in Upper Merion will test whether the protections residents were counting on mean anything at all.
To learn more about the proposal for data centers in Upper Merion, visit Patch.
Editor’s Note: This post first appeared on MONTCO Today in May 2026.
