West Conshohocken is reviewing a conditional use application for a data center on vacant industrial land along Front Street, at the border with Upper Merion Township. The applicant, Innovation 411 Fee Owner, LLC, is associated with developer Brian O'Neill of MLP Ventures, who controls the property and has pursued data center projects in nearby townships.
The application seeks permission for a data center and data warehouse campus, according to MoreThanTheCurve, which first reported the filing. The proposed equipment includes primary and backup generators, HVAC systems, switchgear, gas fuel cells, electrical substations and utility pads. The application describes the site as vacant; it was previously used as a quarry, cement plant and municipal solid waste disposal site.
A Property O'Neill Has Shaped for Years
O'Neill's involvement with the property and an adjacent Upper Merion parcel dates to 2018. He bought out his partners in 2020 and has since controlled the site through Innovation 411 Fee Owner, according to the same report. In 2023, he received conditional use approval for a research and development and warehouse campus on a different Upper Merion property. That site became the Discovery Center, which includes a GSK campus.
The application is being considered under a borough ordinance adopted in June 2026 that allows data centers by conditional use in the heavy industrial district, which extends from Balligomingo Road to the Upper Merion border and the Schuylkill River. The borough amended the ordinance in October 2026 to address data standards and regulations, the report notes.
Officials Point to State Law on Land Use
Council member Stephen Blumenthal said in December 2025 that the borough had a responsibility to regulate data centers through zoning, citing a state law requiring municipalities to provide for all land uses somewhere within their boundaries, according to the same account. The ordinance generally aligns with a joint Montgomery and Chester counties guide recommending data centers as a conditional use in heavy industrial districts. The Montgomery County Planning Commission says the guide is intended to help municipalities prepare for this type of development.
The conditional use application was listed in the minutes of the borough council's September 8 meeting. It is now scheduled for review by the West Conshohocken Planning Commission, with a conditional use hearing set before the borough council for next month.
Part of a Broader Regional Pattern
This is not O'Neill's only active data center push in the area. He has also sought a special exception for a 2-million-square-foot data center on a 66-acre former steel mill site at 900 Conshohocken Road in Plymouth Township, an application submitted by an entity bearing that address and associated with O'Neill, as MoreThanTheCurve has separately reported. That proposal calls for converting 10 existing steel mill buildings and adding standby generators and gas turbines, according to the Times Herald, and the applicant has said the project would use a closed-loop system that would not draw water from the adjacent Schuylkill River or from on-site wells. The Plymouth Township application was filed as a special exception, since current township code does not permit data centers outright, per Fox 29. Plymouth Township's own records show that application dates to April 28, 2026, and that a validity challenge against it was filed July 21, according to the township's official information page. Even if the zoning board grants approval, the project would still need to clear land-development review, including further public meetings, as the Philadelphia Inquirer has reported.
A Rejection — and a Lawsuit — in Upper Merion
O'Neill's most ambitious bid in the region, a five-site data center complex spanning properties between West Conshohocken and Bridgeport, hit a wall in Upper Merion Township. The township's Board of Supervisors unanimously rejected the plan, which totaled more than 4.6 million square feet, at an August 13 meeting, the Inquirer reported. O'Neill has since sued the Upper Merion Township Board of Supervisors over that rejection. He has said the facilities would support AI-powered biotech tied to his existing Discovery Labs life-sciences complex, per the same report.
Upper Merion already permits smaller data centers in zoning districts near Swedeland, River, and Church roads, and a proposed ordinance there would allow larger facilities specifically in Renaissance Park, a complex O'Neill developed, according to MoreThanTheCurve's earlier reporting. The pattern reflects a wider build-out of data center infrastructure across the region — WHYY noted that Amazon is constructing a 2-million-square-foot digital infrastructure campus in Falls Township, Bucks County, while a French company, DataOne, is building a 2.4-million-square-foot facility in Vineland, New Jersey.
Back in West Conshohocken, the application does not detail how the proposed data center would draw power from the grid or whether it would use water from the Schuylkill River, according to the original report. The filing argues that data centers are consistent with and of the same general character as laboratories and warehouses already permitted under current zoning — a framing residents and the planning commission are now expected to weigh ahead of November's scheduled hearing before the borough council.
Regional electricity-demand forecasts
According to PJM’s 2025 Long-Term Load Forecast, electricity demand across its footprint was expected to increase substantially, driven primarily by data center growth. Utility Dive reported that PJM expects summer peak load to grow by 3.6% a year to about 222 GW by 2036, revising its previous forecast of 3.1%. These regional projections do not establish the proposed West Conshohocken center’s power source, demand or effect on the grid.
