A two-story data center proposed for 2184 Industrial Drive in Bethlehem cleared its biggest hurdle Thursday night, as the city's Planning Commission granted land-development plan approval for the project along with three separate waiver requests. The facility, planned for a 6.75-acre site in the Lehigh Valley Industrial Park I beside Route 22 and near the Route 378 interchange, is projected to draw a peak electrical demand of about 120 megawatts.
The commission's vote, covered by WFMZ.com, took place during a meeting at City Hall. The proposed building would span two stories with about 65,590 square feet per floor, according to mcall.com. The parcel, zoned Planned Industrial, previously housed the Crowder Service Center and sits in Bethlehem's Lehigh County portion, per the same outlet's account of the project when it was first proposed, as reported by lehighvalleylive.com in August.
Driveway Widths Triple the City's Limit
Among the three waivers granted, the most notable involved driveway entrances far exceeding Bethlehem's standard dimensions. The applicant requested a 120-foot-wide entrance on Industrial Drive and a 100-foot-wide entrance on Avenue B, even though city ordinance caps driveway entrance width at 35 feet, the station's report notes. The applicant argued that a 35-foot entrance would not provide adequate width for larger vehicles to enter and exit safely.
Bethlehem's Department of Public Works supported the driveway waiver, but only on the condition that construction be directed by an engineer and include ADA-compliant curb ramps and crosswalks, per the same account. The report also notes that other industrial properties in Bethlehem have previously received permission for driveways wider than 35 feet. The remaining two waivers covered fill slopes on the site and a request to replace on-site tree planting requirements with a fee paid in lieu of plantings.
Two Years in the Making, Under the Old Rules
Dylan Panebianco, vice president of operations at Boyle Construction, told commissioners his company had worked on the project for about two years, calling the design the product of significant time and effort and describing it as unique to data centers in the country. Project proponents listed include Boyle Construction and Tensoriiq; the site itself was acquired by Paxos Entreprises in 2021, according to the same WFMZ report.
Because the application was filed before Bethlehem adopted new data-center zoning standards, the project is being reviewed under the city's prior code and is exempt from the new rules, according to lehighdaily.com. Even so, planning commissioner Robert Melosky said the applicant complies with many provisions of the recently amended regulations anyway, per WFMZ's account.
Cooling, Generators and Noise Levels
Plans call for the data center to use a closed-loop cooling system that uses no water, according to Lehigh Valley Public Media. The facility will also house three natural gas generators in a basement, which will comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requirements and are expected to provide 20% of the facility's power, per WFMZ's reporting. Representatives said those generators will use about 45 million gallons of water.
The company behind the project will spend about $86 million on power upgrades and will bring a new natural gas line to the area, paying its entire cost, the station's report states. Panebianco said the project carries no implied or anticipated impact on anyone's utility bills. Noise mitigation measures will include generator silencers, chiller sound blankets and specific building materials; Panebianco said current daytime noise levels near the site reach a maximum of 71 decibels and nighttime levels reach 72 decibels, while a sound study for the project indicates the data center itself will emit no more than 55 decibels. The site sits near a highway, an airport and an industrial park, according to the same account.
Residents Push Back on Power, Water and Heat
Public commenters at the meeting raised concerns about power consumption, noise, water use, artificial intelligence and project-generated heat, per WFMZ. Some commenters said they live about 400 feet from the proposed project, and others challenged the validity of studies conducted on the project's behalf, the outlet reported.
Those local worries echo broader regional unease. Lehigh Valley planning officials have voiced concerns about the impacts that data centers proposed in urban areas could have on surrounding neighborhoods and the local environment, according to mcall.com. Separately, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission has said a severe scenario in a recent study projected new data-center demand across the regional PJM grid between 2029 and 2030 would exceed the Commonwealth's entire current annual electricity demand, per the PA PUC.
Allentown's Parallel Data Center Push
Bethlehem is not the only Lehigh Valley city weighing data-center growth. Allentown's Planning Commission separately granted land-development approval for an 80-megawatt data center at 2401 Emaus Avenue, a project converting a 224,000-square-foot warehouse, with conditions including a megawatt usage limit and restrictions on emergency generator operation, air quality and emissions, according to WFMZ. The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, however, said it could not recommend approval of a separate, 146,000-square-foot Allentown data center proposal because the application lacked project-specific operational information, mcall.com reported.
