PNK Group to Host Public Meeting on Gregg Township Data Center Proposal

Union County Commissioner Chair Preston Boop says PPL Electric Utilities previously warned local officials that it "does not have the ability or the will" to supply enough electricity for a data center in Gregg Township — and that prior signal from the utility hangs over PNK Group's public meeting in Allenwood scheduled for 4 p.m. today.

The session, organized by PNK and open only to pre-registered attendees who received the specific location upon sign-up, is the first public forum on the developer's proposal to use part of its footprint at the Great Stream Commons industrial park near Allenwood as a data center campus. PNK P2 LLC already owns two properties at Great Stream Commons totaling 158 acres and was recently approved by Gregg Township to construct three additional buildings, with no stated use on record for any of the new structures.

The body with formal authority over the project's first and most critical gate is not the county: it is the Gregg Township board of supervisors. Gregg Township's current zoning ordinance does not permit data centers at all. PNK has already submitted an application to amend the township code to allow the use in areas zoned for commercial or manufacturing purposes. That amendment requires a supervisors' vote, and nothing moves forward without it. Shawn McLaughlin, Union County's planning and economic development director, confirmed that township officials are working to update the ordinance, though no hearing date has been set.

The county commissioners hold a separate but consequential lever. PNK P2 LLC submitted a formal offer to purchase a 37-acre county-owned lot at Great Stream Commons for data center development; the commissioners took no action on that offer. "There's been a lot of concern raised," Boop said. "At this point in time, I certainly don't know enough about the unintended consequences of data centers to think about approving anything at Great Stream Commons." Commissioner Stacy Richards defined the county's boundaries more sharply: "We don't own that land anymore... it's restricted by the covenants for Great Stream Commons or municipal zoning. It's really a municipal matter."

As of Tuesday's commissioners' meeting, Boop acknowledged the board hadn't even coordinated on whether to send anyone to today's forum. "We haven't met with PNK or talked with them about the plan," he said. "I saw an invitation to attend. I don't know if we have a county involvement in that at this point." Commissioner Jeff Reber has said he wants the county to exit the land development business entirely.

ModCorr LLC, a modular housing manufacturer from Galveston, Texas, currently leases a 252,282-square-foot building at Great Stream Commons, underscoring that the park already supports active industrial tenants. Boop noted at a recent Harrisburg conference he learned that roughly 10 percent or fewer of Pennsylvania sites flagged for potential data center development ever actually get built.

If the zoning amendment clears the supervisors, subsequent steps would include conditional use applications, environmental and stormwater reviews, utility interconnection studies with PPL, and any requests for tax abatement or payment-in-lieu-of-taxes arrangements with local taxing bodies. The electricity supply question — one PPL has already answered unfavorably once — may prove decisive before any of those processes begin.