Pennhurst Data Center Campus Denied
Penn Hurst Holdings proposed a 1.9 million-square-foot data center campus on 123 acres of the historic Pennhurst State School and Hospital site. The East Vincent Township Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to deny the conditional use application on May 21, 2026. Penn Hurst Holdings appealed to Chester County Court of Common Pleas on June 26, arguing irreconcilable contradictions in the township's zoning code.
Key facts
- Owner
- Penn Hurst Holdings DE LLC
- Filing LLC
- Penn Hurst Holdings DE LLC
- Size
- 123 ac
- Location
- East Vincent Township (Chester County), Pennsylvania
- Decided
- 2026-05-21
- Stage today
- Denied
Source
read 2026-08-14
What to do next
Next step: Denied — watch for a re-filing or a scaled-down resubmission; ask the clerk to add you to the notification list.
What has happened so far (3 events)
Find the paper trail
Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)
State environmental permits
Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.
- Pennsylvania DEPThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
- DEP Data Center Permit Tracker (the only state register built for data centers — it already feeds this tracker)Searchable public filings — search the operator, the shell LLC on the deed, and the address.
County & town filings
The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.
- Search East Vincent Township (Chester County) planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
- Search East Vincent Township (Chester County) property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.
Utility & grid records
The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.
- PJM Interconnection (Mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
- Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
- FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
- Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.
Federal databases
Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.
- EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 40.160, -75.580 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
- EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
- EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.
These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.
Around here
- Pennsylvania briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Pennsylvania
- PECO - Limerick Distribution Project — East Coventry / Lower Pottsgrove / Limerick Townships (Chester / Montgomery County), 5 mi In review
- Project Forge Data Center — East Whiteland Township (Chester County), 8 mi In review
- King of Prussia campus (MLP Ventures) — Upper Merion Township (Montgomery County), 12 mi Denied
- 900 Conshohocken Road data center (former Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill) — Plymouth Township (Montgomery County), 16 mi Awaiting decision
- TekPark Data Center Expansion — Upper Macungie Township (Lehigh County), 27 mi Rumored
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Pennhurst Data Center Campus”, aigridwatch.com/projects/east-vincent-pennhurst, retrieved 2026-10-11.
As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing
A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.
Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).