Starpointe data center hearings to continue into December
The Hanover Township Board of Supervisors scheduled two additional hearings in the ongoing review process for a proposed 350-megawatt data center in Starpointe Business Park after the developer announced that they have two additional witnesses to present.
The board has been reviewing the conditional use permit submitted in May by Dallas, Texas-based developer Prime Data Centers LLC since August 2026, with over 20 hours of total testimony across a dozen hearings hampering the pace of proceedings.
Prime has called acoustic, civil, electrical, mechanical and natural gas engineers that have worked on the project to testify regarding numerous aspects of the preliminary design, plus the Project Lead Kate Nolan Bryden.
Bryden provided an overview of the project during direct testimony at the start of the hearing process, and has been called back for cross-examination several times by a group of attorneys representing concerned residents who live near the proposed site.
Thomas Steele, a local attorney representing Prime, said that while the developer has called several witnesses to the stand, their direct testimony only took up less than five hours so far, and that the residents’ attorneys cross-examination has occupied more than 15 hours of hearing time.
In addition to the attorneys, several other residents who were granted party status to the hearing have cross-examined Prime’s witnesses, often using the platform to voice their concerns with the potentially harmful environmental impact of the proposed 350-megawatt, seven-building data center campus and attached natural gas power plant.
Prime representatives have repeatedly highlighted that the project will create hundreds of jobs to build and maintain the data center campus, and emphasized that Prime will fully comply with all applicable environmental regulations and the commonwealth’s Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) standards, which were signed into law earlier this year.
The board was to continue its review of the conditional use application on Wednesday, and again on Nov. 18, plus Dec. 9, all at 6 p.m. at the Hanover Volunteer Fire Department at 9 Starck Drive in Burgettstown.