Though the design of a massive proposed data center in Springdale has shifted starkly since the borough approved the project in December, residents’ skepticism has remained steady.
Developers presented the revamped proposal during an hourslong question-and-answer session Wednesday afternoon that drew out around 100 people, many of whom continued to express their disapproval.
The center — which would be located at the former site of the coal-fired Cheswick Generating Station power plant — has entered its land development phase, which will involve Allegheny County officials examining the proposal ahead of any construction.
Springdale Council offered the project its initial blessing late last year, voting to approve a conditional use application by developer Allegheny DC Property Co. Several council members said they feared a doomed legal battle if they attempted to resist the proposal.
Still, a number of residents have continued efforts to halt the project, holding protests and vowing defiance during upcoming land development hearings.
Exchanges between residents and developers Tuesday offered the first glimpse of what the next phase of the project may hold.
A project transformed
The data center developers presented Tuesday resembles its initial design very little.
And that’s intentional, according to consultant Brian Regli, who has served as the main spokesman for the project.
He said the alterations were primarily driven by two factors: residents’ suggestions and technological changes.
Among the biggest changes to the project is its branding.
Previously known informally as the “Springdale Data Center,” Regli said developers are now referring to the proposal as the “Springdale Dynamo” and Allegheny DC Property Co. as “Dynamo DC.”
It’s a reference to the Dynamo moniker of the Allegheny Valley School District, which, itself, pays homage to the borough’s industrial history.
The design approved during the conditional use hearings consisted of two structures: a 565,000-square-foot hyperscale data center and a 200,000-square-foot mechanical cooling plant.
That’s now been consolidated into a 652,000-square-foot building, which includes both server equipment and mechanical chillers.
Regli said those servers will likely be designed around chip maker Nvidia’s recently released its Vera Rubin platform, which is designed for AI supercomputing.
But that new design could require more power.
Developers previously cited the figure of 180 megawatts consistently, but Regli said that figure could now jump as high as 330 megawatts — which could power about 275,000 homes.
Instead of a gray, boxy design, the new proposal features a rust color with large glass panes on the Pittsburgh Street side of the structure.
In turn, Pittsburgh Street would also act as the primary entrance to the site rather than the previous planned ingress on Duquesne Avenue.
Perhaps the most significant change to the project’s design would see more than 100 backup generators attached to the side of the center within “acoustic barriers.”
The previous design called for the generators to be placed unshielded atop the roof of the structure.
Developers claim the new placement will make the center significantly quieter, sitting around 55 decibels on Pittsburgh Street.
Developers also revealed their likely plan for the center’s activation. The center would likely go online in four phases based on four different quadrants of the building, Regli said.
The project also has a new team of experts and consultants.
Much of the design work was previously done by Texas-based engineering firm Jacobs Solutions, but developers have since dropped the company.
In its place, international construction giant Turner Construction, which maintains a Pittsburgh office, has stepped in.
Regli said he and Turner collaborated to select several additional firms, including Pittsburgh-based Mascaro Construction and Babich Acoustics, Moon Township-based Civil and Environmental Consultants, Ohio-based architecture firm Woolpert Inc. and New York engineering heavyweight JB&B, among others.
The project remains financially backed by New York hedge fund Davidson Kempner.
Recruiting the new firms is part of an effort to involve more local experts, according to Regli.
Many of those experts fielded questions Wednesday night.
Residents react
Though most of the conversations were civil in the crowded and muggy Springdale gymnasium, several attendees said they walked away feeling unsatisfied.
Vanessa Lynch, who lives in nearby Indiana Township, said she appreciated developers’ willingness to engage the public, but her primary concern — pollution from diesel backup generators — still hasn’t been addressed.
“For me, these changes are ‘whatever,’” said Lynch, also a coordinator for nonprofit Moms Clean Air Force.
Others were more blunt.
“It’s still a monstrosity,” Morgan Pattison said.
As he scrutinized developers’ placards with his wife, Terri, the lifelong borough resident said he doesn’t believe the center belongs in a small town close to residential neighborhoods.
For her part, Terri said she’s pleased to see developers redesign the area around the St. Mark’s Cemetery and the Harwick Miners Memorial, where some of her relatives are buried, but she otherwise has no love for the project.
Several local organizers gathered with signs outside the Springdale Borough Building to speak against the proposal before the open house even began.
Many were part of an informal group of local people that has consistently met at a local pizzeria to plan resistance to the project during its land development phase. The group held a protest against the development earlier this month.
Resident Marty Garrigan told the crowd gathered outside that pollution and noise remain prevalent issues, and locals still have a chance of halting the development.
“They’re just putting lipstick on a monster,” Garrigan said.
Lauren Posey, an environmental policy advocate for local nonprofit Protect PT who has monitored the project for months, said residents still have a chance to make their voices heard.
“It’s still a picture on a piece of poster board,” she said. “It’s not a done deal.”
Posey said she believed developers had taken several positive steps with the redesign, including heightened environmental standards for diesel generators and their removal from the roof of the structure.
But she said the changes are the result of residents pushing developers in the first place. As the project enters its next phase, she said residents should continue to be vocal.
Asked and answered
Regli spent much of the evening under interrogation.
That alternatively left him explaining the nuances of energy prices, opining about the nature of capitalism in an impromptu Socratic circle or fending off more aggressive inquiries like why he sought to “destroy the community.”
By the end, he said he was unsure whether he’d changed any minds.
Joshua Cassarino, an acoustics expert with Trinity Consultants, also spent much of the night mobbed.
Though some attendees sought to vent frustrations about the project, he said most approached with genuine questions.
With experience on several data center projects, Cassarino said the open house at Springdale offered a lot more information than developers typically do.
“The truth is all you can do,” he said. “We’re engineers; we have the numbers.”
Next steps
Regli previously said Allegheny DC would likely submit its preliminary land development plan to Allegheny County the day after the open house in hopes of concluding hearings by the end of the year.
After that, the company would have to submit a final land development plan and acquire various permits from entities like the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Allegheny County Health Department.
Construction, Regli hopes, can begin sometime next year.
“What you see now is a further refinement, but it is still not done,” Regli told TribLive. “There is still going to be changes depending (again) on feedback during land development, depending on additional community feedback that we get, and then ultimately when we start talking tenants.”
The developers don’t have any prospective tenants, according to Regli.
As for the opposition, Regli said he hopes those seeking to halt the project can find common ground, but the developers would seek to move forward with the project regardless.
“They should exercise their rights to the maximum available resource,” he said. “Fundamentally, though, we also have rights. We are a property owner. That property owner has received by right use to develop a data center. So, we will, of course, defend that right.”
Long-term, Regli said he believes Pittsburgh should be the center of a data center boom in post-industrial parts of the nation like Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.
He said his company is already seriously eyeing three to five other sites, but he did not offer more details about their locations or potential timelines.