AWS Kline Township (Schuylkill) data center, McAdoo, Pennsylvania

Kline Township supervisors have until September 30, 2026 to decide on Amazon Web Services' land development plans for a proposed data center campus off Lofty Road south of McAdoo in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, after granting Amazon an extension to answer comments from the township's engineers and consultants. The Amazon data center, dubbed Project Brewster, would put nine data centers plus administration, water and security buildings, 2.1 million square feet in all, on the former Brewster Development land across from van Hoekelen Greenhouses, which had been approved for warehouses.

At the township planning commission's first hearing on June 30, 2026, Amazon development executive Evan Caso said the campus is about 1 million square feet smaller than the Brewster warehouse plan, and Amazon would realign Lofty Road near Route 309 and add a traffic light at its own cost. Amazon's Becky Ford said the campus would bring 400 to 500 full-time jobs, and the company will pay for upgrades to the Kline Township Municipal Authority's system and to PPL's. PPL's Jane George said customers should not see a rate increase and that "we are forecasting that customers will actually see a decrease in their rates."

The planners and the public pressed on water and noise. Caso said the site may draw up to 15,000 gallons a day for workers and restrooms, and on cooling: "We use water for cooling less than 2% of the year," he said. "If we're allowed 100,000 gallons per day, that doesn't necessarily mean we're drawing 100,000 gallons per day every day." Neither Caso nor Ford could estimate yearly water use, and the authority's representatives said a new water main through Haddock would be needed. Amazon also wants its diesel backup generators exempted from the township noise ordinance, and its representatives gave varying answers on how often they would be tested. "I beg this committee to not approve their request to be able to exceed the decibels," said Jackie Joyce, the closest neighbor to the site. "I'm kind of appalled by the lack of specificity in a lot of questions that were ask for the answers of them," said Dan Krivenko of Lofty.

Crowds have followed the project from the start: an overflow crowd forced the township to cancel its December 2025 meeting, and the June hearing was held under heavy security because of "a credible threat." At that hearing, where comment was limited to township residents and property owners, police removed former House Majority Leader Todd Eachus of Drums by force as he tried to speak. Felony assault charges against Eachus were later withdrawn, and misdemeanor charges were sent to county court; he pleaded not guilty.

In August 2026 Gov. Josh Shapiro removed all data centers from the state's Permit Fast Track Program, which had accepted the Kline project on May 22, 2025, saying fast-track permitting is "not right for this kind of development." The same week the planning commission held its third public hearing on the plans.

The Kline Township Board of Supervisors decides the preliminary and final land development plan, now due by September 30, 2026, and numerous other approvals are still required, though basic site preparation has begun under the earlier Brewster permits.