Project Laurel data center, Pottstown, Pennsylvania

Project Laurel, a data center campus proposed by MDC 7 LLC on about 191 acres in Limerick Township outside Pottstown, Montgomery County, has been before the township's Board of Supervisors in a conditional use hearing since April 2026, with the next session on October 1, 2026. The application calls for eight two-story data center buildings totaling just under 2.8 million square feet, three substations and 80,000 square feet of support buildings, on seven parcels between the Philadelphia Premium Outlets and the Limerick nuclear plant.

The site has reportedly secured 750 megawatts of power from the utility PECO and lies less than a mile from Constellation Energy's Limerick Generating Station. The land has road frontage on Lightcap, Sanatoga, Evergreen and Possum Hollow roads, and the plan would vacate and relocate parts of Sanatoga Road and Possum Hollow Road and move a gas transmission line; the campus would be served by public water and sewer.

WFMZ reported the campus would stand 85 feet tall and use at least 750,000 gallons of water every day. On July 7, hours before the supervisors voted on a stricter data center ordinance, MDC 7 filed two more applications for the same land, splitting the project into a first phase of one 300,000-square-foot building on the southwest corner along Evergreen and Sanatoga roads and a second phase of seven buildings, 2.7 million square feet in all.

The township's summary puts the first building at about 36 emergency generators and 42 rooftop chillers. Who would run the campus is still not public: at the July hearing, MDC 7's attorney Ed Campbell said several possible end users and development companies were evaluating the site and that the applicant expected to partner with one after winning approval, but he declined to name them.

"I'd like to determine if these people that are coming in were good neighbors where they're currently at," Supervisor Patrick Morroney said. The applicant's own witnesses left much unsettled that night: project manager A.J. Magnotta of LaBella Associates said the water, sewer, stormwater and other utility systems were not fully designed, that the relocation of an Energy Transfer gas pipeline was not final, and that he knew of no completed hydrogeological study of the effect on nearby private wells.

Project principal Anthony Maras said the 750 megawatt figure came from a 2024 feasibility study that was preliminary and not a guarantee, that he did not believe a fully updated sound study had been done, and that if PECO asked the campus to cut its demand it would curtail operations rather than run its diesel generators. The applicant has not received an updated PECO service letter since 2024.

The developer is also preparing a large-load application to Pennsylvania American Water to find out what new pipelines, pumping stations, storage and wastewater capacity would be needed. Neighbors have fought the plan since it surfaced in January, when a Change.org petition against it passed 680 signatures.

"Where is the power coming from? Is my electric bill going to go up? I have well water, should I be concerned?" asked Meagan Smolsky, who lives about two miles from the site, at a May protest outside the township building. Smolsky, of the group Prevent Limerick Data Center Development, was denied party status, the legal standing that lets a resident question witnesses in the hearing.

In April the township moved every data center hearing from the Spring-Ford Area High School auditorium to the much smaller township building, citing online threats; opponents said the move was meant to limit how many residents could attend. Township Manager Daniel Kerr described threats that politicians should be violently removed from office, and a threat of a Molotov cocktail at the township building; Smolsky's group said it had nothing to do with them.

At the August 18 session, which ran more than four hours, the board declined to recognize the developer's expert witness, a landscape architect, after attorneys for the township and the Spring-Ford Area School District questioned her credentials; Patch reported the project would clear some 38 more acres of woodland. State Sen. Katie Muth said residents were still waiting for a credible, qualified expert to assess the risk of putting a data center a few hundred feet from the nuclear plant.

The Limerick Township Board of Supervisors decides whether Project Laurel gets its conditional use approval, and the hearing continues October 1, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. at the Limerick Township Building; Connie Lawson chairs the board. As of July, the applicant's team said experts on sound, vibration, air emissions, generators, cooling, fire hazards, emergency planning and traffic would testify later, and no hearing dates have been set for the two phased applications.

Even with approval, the project would still face land development hearings and environmental approval from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, which Kerr said could take another year before construction begins.