A handful of Falls residents attended Monday night’s Supervisors meeting to share concerns over the Amazon data center planned for a portion of the Keystone Trade Center.
The Falls Supervisors in March 2025 – following various other public meetings, including the zoning hearing board, and planning commission – approved North Point Development’s modified land development plans, which permitted warehouses at the KTC to accommodate a data center. However, Falls resident Amanda Westerman said she was under the impression until two weeks ago that Amazon was building a warehouse at the site.
“If I was aware that this was a data center a year ago, I would have been here sooner,” Westerman told the board.
Westerman, stay-at-home mom of three, organized a petition opposing the data center and told the board more than 700 people have signed it in less than two days’ time. She asked the board to hold a community meeting to allow residents to ask questions.
Supervisors Chairman Jeff Dence said the township would look to arrange a town hall meeting.
The few residents who spoke shared concerns over purported impacts of a data center on the air, drinking water supplies, and residents’ health.
Addressing issues related to water and electricity usage, Township Manager John Shepherd shared that when the KTC previously operated as U.S. Steel, the steel mill used considerable amounts of water and electricity. The state regulates utility usage, not the township.
Shepherd also pointed out that the Falls Supervisors do not have the authority to deny a project simply because it may not be a popular option.
“In Pennsylvania there’s no ability to do a moratorium on any sort of development,” he said. “(Falls Supervisors) don’t have the ability to say, ‘we don’t want a data center.’ The state of Pennsylvania preempts some of the regulatory decisions this board can make.”
The Falls Township Supervisors began reviewing plans for various tiers of the extensive NorthPoint Development project in 2020.
In all, NorthPoint intends to build 20 or more state-of-the-art industrial warehouse buildings, distribution centers, as well as a data center totaling 10 million square feet, with the potential of 15 million square feet on the 1,800-acre property.
Officials have said that once complete, the redevelopment will create as many as 14,000 new jobs.
NorthPoint Development will invest $1.5 billion in the transformation of the site. In all, NorthPoint will spend an estimated $40 million to $45 million to remediate the site.
The data center supports hundreds of skilled construction jobs over multiple years and creates permanent roles in engineering, operations, facilities management, and security.
