Philadelphia Planners Shortlist Bellwether District Among Two Data Center Sites
Only two sites in Philadelphia can host a large data center, and the Bellwether District is one of them, according to a Planning Commission assessment reported by Inside Climate News.
The land carries a heavy industrial history. A 2019 fire pushed the refinery operator on the site into bankruptcy and out of business, and HRP Group later took ownership of the 1,300-acre tract, Inside Climate News reported.
Exelon has already taken a substation plan to PJM, the regional grid operator, seeking power distribution capacity for a data center at Bellwether that remains hypothetical, per Inside Climate News. No tenant has been named for that load.
City Council voted unanimously for a 10-year extension of possible tax breaks available to tenants at the site through the Keystone Opportunity Zone program, according to Inside Climate News.
On Aug. 18, Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order that enacted stricter guardrails on data center development in Pennsylvania, Inside Climate News reported.
Four separate tracks are now open on the same parcel: a planning shortlist of two candidate sites, a utility substation proposal filed with the grid operator, a decade-long municipal tax runway, and a state order setting conditions on data center projects.
Source: insideclimatenews.org (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink