ICE in Phoenixville PA today. Taylor Alley parking lot adjacent to The Foodery Phoenixville and Borough Hall.
I called the Foodery to verify.
Notice how agents spoke to people along with throwing people to ground.
Once again, you can’t clearly see which branch of law-enforcement they are with once again and masked faces.
I also have no idea if local law-enforcement was notified or not.
I have no idea who these people were they took, or if they were even illegal.
This is unnecessarily traumatic and it’s happening in our communities.
1930s Germany with social media.
Oh the continued irony as America gets ready for a big anniversary this summer. This is not what our founding fathers fought, bled, and died for. This is what they were trying to escape. If this is the way this is going to be.
I will be damned if I go to any America 250 or US Semiquincentennial anything this summer. We should all boycott these events because what we would be celebrating isn’t even represented in our day-to-day life, and I am entitled to that freaking opinion.
Shhhhh! They want it to be a political secret! Literally if you try searching for it on Google and stuff it’s nearly impossible to find you have to dig. Which is kind of unusual because they want these bills out there so people can see their elected officials are working except they elected officials know this is a shameful dirty secret and should not pass go.
The media is not really talking about this – I have only found ONE story and it goes to some sort of initial vote TOMORROW as in 2/4/26. But we all are and why is that? Is there a Johnny Frack err Josh Shapiro blackout of sorts? I hate to sound all conspiracy theory, but this whole issue is like a giant conspiracy theory, isn’t it?
It is a partisan bill. It’s a Democrat sponsored bill, the they want to offer up with us the residents of Pennsylvania as collateral damage, to help Governor Josh Shapiro, who just launched his reelection campaign and has an agenda when it comes to data centers, doesn’t he?
An Act amending the act of July 31, 1968 (P.L.805, No.247), known as the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code, in zoning, providing for data center ordinance assistance; and imposing duties on the Center for Local Government Services.
So yes, it’s a Band-Aid on the Municipalities Planning Code (MPC) which hasn’t had any comprehensive updates since circa 1968 or 1969. The MPC guides all the zoning that we find maddening affecting our communities. The MPC is the reason that when your elected officials say they can’t do something about something getting shoved down a community’s throat…they often can’t. Sometimes it’s because they lost their balls but not all of the time, right?
You know it’s funny, but under the MPC, all of our communities have to update their comprehensive plans every so many years or they should. (In some cases, like what was once the case in Lower Merion Township for example, it was like 30 years or better, but I digress.) Anyway the MPC tells our communities how often they should update yet that weighty tome is never comprehensively updated, and it needs it, but in order to do it, it requires an act of the state constitution to be enacted, and isn’t it time yet to do so?
I mean, why would politicians actually go out of our their way to do anything truly beneficial for their communities when it’s far easier to hold up that gruel bowl and to just continue to jury rig the MPC with these odd legislative Band-Aids that do more harm than good? This is exactly the case in my humble opinion with PA HB 2151 of 2026. Josh Shapiro and his corporate buddies and lobbyists want it, yes? It’s not all about them yet is it?
This has barely been introduced five minutes ago quite literally and it’s already being warp speed turbo charged fast tracked. All by edict of the Governor and his cozy relationships with AI and data center folks, yes? A VOTE IS SCHEDULED FOR TOMORROW ALREADY. We know how slow stuff moves in Harrisburg, yet this is all polished and ready to go? Mmmkay.
PA HB 502 of 2025 is kind of a political cousin to PA 2151 of 2026. It kind of interesting that you can’t find articles about it now and PA 2151 is very hard to locate on a simple internet search. It’s hiding in plain sight hoping it’ll get passed PDQ.
PA HB 2151 will literally remove rights from municipalities regarding data centers. It’s not some nice and nicely how to guide which is how it’s being misrepresented by state reps and presented.
The good news is state reps are almost always constantly running for office because it’s a two-year term. We as Pennsylvania’s need to remind them. They can’t rest on their laurels and hope the Democrats are going to save them because this is a partisan bill. We don’t have much time to ratchet it up here and we need to get busy. It’s already happening but you can do your part contact your state rep. Tell them simply PA HB5121 is not for the good of Pennsylvania. You need to tell them if they like being a state rep they don’t want this to be their Waterloo.
Now I want show you who’s involved with the bill. And please note there is still one obvious Chester County State Reps who is a sponsor. Sappey and I am very disappointed in her, and Danielle Friel Otten who ran initially as a pipeline activist, has apparently removed herself (more below). Of course former Radnor Township Commissioner who often looks like a muppet with those bangs who is now a Delaware County State Rep named Lisa Borowski is on it as well, which doesn’t surprise me because all she does is bend over in Harrisburg, for whatever she is told to do, doesn’t she? And yes, that does sound vulgar, but that’s an opinion of how people see her.
(Actually any sponsor or co-sponsor on this bill should be sent kneepads with Josh Shapiro‘s face on them shouldn’t they? )
Your data center issue potentially appearing in your community is your new pipeline. It’s your new condo building you don’t want. It’s your new apartment building. It’s also your new warehouse that you don’t want. The common denominator here is they need to comprehensively update the PA Municipalities Planning Code yet what do they want to do? Shove data centers in everywhere. Now I’m gonna show you who the Bill sponsors are here and then I’m going to segue to a piece of Pennsylvania in Lackawanna County that you didn’t know existed- Archbald. Why is this little area? That’s a big big acreage area called Archbald important? They’re trying to shove 400 acres are better of data center up there. This area is a proposed location for several large-scale data center projects, notably the Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus (14 buildings) and “Project Gravity” (7 buildings) by Western Hospitality Partners, sparking significant local debate over environmental impact (water, power) and proximity to residential areas
If you want to FedEx, these people kneepads, you can go to their office page, you will get the addresses. Of course I’m actually kidding with the kneepads but it’s apropos in my opinion.
I must note that since I started this post earlier today, Rep. Danielle Otten has apparently removed herself from the bill. However, there is no public announcement of this by here, and shouldn’t there be? Otherwise it makes people wonder, right? If you are standing with the people, please say so. Here are the screen shots that pertain to this and see updated list here:
So giddy up fellow Pennsylvanians and stop this thing. It deserves to be stopped. This bill diminishes our rights to have a say in the shape of our communities. Plus there are very real environmental and other issues with regard to data centers. Google Louden County Virginia and other places which have been negatively impacted. Here in Chester County and throughout PA, it’s starting to feel like every day brings another data center plan. It’s time to slow their roll.
Gosh East Pikeland, your slip is showing…again. I will note that this is a document that is filed with the courts and not a state secret. And this attorney and his firm? They don’t play.
Grab the popcorn. Happy Friday!
I feel the need to point that out since they didn’t like that I posted something else not a state secret…in November.
I had finally gotten through listening to the insanity of the West Whiteland Zoning Hearing Board meeting when a new headline for Savvy popped up. DiBruno’s which is now NOT really them any longer, it’s owned by another company now – Wakefern is closing the Ardmore and Wayne locations. A 3rd store in Philadelphia I guess someplace also is closing according to Michael Klein in the Philadelphia Inquirer. So the company that purchased them in 2024 is related to ShopRite as in that guy Jeff Brown who ran for mayor in Philadelphia a few years ago.
Apparently the original store on 9th Street in the Italian Market and the center city Chestnut Street location will survive. I will admit for DiBruno’s my heart belongs to 9th Street. That was a big part of growing up, going there with my father.
I covered the opening of the Ardmore store in 2011. The soft opening launch of it all was March, 2011. I covered it for Ardmore Patch at the time.
March 31 marked the grand opening reception for Philadelphia-based Di Bruno Brothers new store in the Ardmore Farmers Market in Suburban Square.
Di Bruno’s began in 1939, when brothers Danny and Joe Di Bruno opened a small market on 9th Street in the heart of the Italian Market in South Philadelphia. I grew up going there with my family.
My great aunts lived not too far away in South Philadelphia and as a small child my family lived in Society Hill before moving to the Main Line. Some of my earliest memories were treks to the market and to Di Bruno’s.
When you walked into the long and very narrow store that was Di Bruno’s on 9th Street, it was a feast for the senses: cheeses and cured meats were suspended from the ceiling and shelves lined the walls with all sorts of foods and coffees. Large oak barrels filled with olives, pepperoncini, and other brine-soaked treats stood at attention like soldiers. Their spicy, salty aromas saturated the store.
People were greeted with a smile and the brothers were always helpful. You could truly trust them to give you something fabulous when you asked for, say, a suggestion on a cheese or cured meat.
One of my late father’s favorite stories about Di Bruno’s took place one Christmas time, and centered around an older woman in the store who was dressed in neat but threadbare clothes. As he told it, the woman was struggling with what she could get with the very little money she had, when one of the Di Bruno brothers asked if she needed help. She showed them what she had, and they said it would be fine and filled two large shopping bags with food for her. It was obviously far exceeding what she would have been able to pay for, but that was just the way they were. They were kind and they treated all their customers like family.
That feeling and legacy have survived throughout the generations and informed every store Di Bruno’s has opened.
While their latest opens for regular business on April 5in the Ardmore Farmers Market in Suburban Square, Di Bruno’s opened their doors on March 31 for a grand opening celebration that was heaven on earth for foodies.
The Ardmore Market is a very clean and well lit modern space, yet Di Bruno’s, as they have with their other stores, has maintained the feeling of the Italian Market. They spared no expense and treated all of the guests to the delectable treats that made them famous, in addition to samplings from their catering menu.
If the crowd at the grand opening is any indication, Di Bruno’s will be not only a welcome addition to the Main Line food scene, but an incredibly popular one as well.
Buona fortuna Di Bruno’s and welcome to Ardmore!
Here are some photos I took at that launch party:
I only went to Wayne a couple of times because well, Carlino’s in West Chester is out here. Wayne was a big gamble for them when it opened in 2021. I wondered how it would do over time. At the same time they opened Wayne, it seemed like Ardmore was just less than it was before. But I also heard the rents in Suburban Square are crazy expensive around that same time, so was it unexpected to me this news today? Actually yes. I always figured when Wayne opened, eventually Ardmore would be phased out because the Ardmore Farmer’s Market has been a fauxmer’s market for many years, dating back to when DiBruno’s opened there in 2011. As a matter of fact, it was DiBruno’s that got me to go back to the Ardmore Farmer’s Market at all.
Anyway, it’s a major bummer, and I feel sorry for the employees. That will be a BIG empty space in Wayne across from the farmers market there. In Suburban Square? Meh. Kimco will plug some drek in their spot in the fauxmer’s market.
Well I received word today that the ripoff furniture store owner from Malvern/Frazer was sentenced….finally. I mean, this has been going on for a couple of years or more.
So I am referring to Matt Kaplan of the now defunct M. Kaplan Interiors.
M. Kaplan Interiors was a furniture store and interior design firm owned by Matt and Margaret Kaplan. The business, which claimed a long history in the area, was closed following multiple allegations in 2023-2024 of widespread consumer fraud.
I only went in there once when I first moved to Chester County. I pretty much walked out the door minutes after I went in because I was just starting to look for a sofa for our living room and the woman on the floor, who I guess was his wife, was incredibly rude. And it was because I didn’t know what I wanted other than I didn’t want a huge sofa. I was just so uncomfortable. I left and I literally went across the street to resellers at the time and bought a vintage Chippendale sofa and had it recovered and rebuilt.
So today I was told Kaplan was sentenced today. Supposedly 6-23 months in Chester County Prison, 6 years probation, and he must make full restitution. He reports on Monday or something and has this weekend to get his life in order before going to jail.
My comment on the restitution is, I will believe it when I see it. Wonder what is happening with his wife? Because she was charged with a couple of things and I don’t know that they ever did anything with her.
Kaplan pled guilty this past September. See article embedded below and here is an excerpt:
WEST CHESTER — The owner of a now-closed high-end furniture store who was accused of taking money from multiple customers, some of them elderly, but not fulfilling their orders, has pleaded guilty to felony charges in the cases against him, some of which were filed more than two years ago.
As Common Pleas Court Judge Allison Bell Royer prepared to hear a pre-trial matter in the case of Matthew Kaplan on Sept. 2, his attorney informed the judge that his client would instead enter open pleas to four counts in the quartet of cases against him.
Kaplan, 56, of Abington, Montgomery County, pleaded guilty to two counts of deceptive or fraudulent business practices, a second-degree felony; passing bad checks; and theft by failure to make required disposition of funds, also a second-degree felony.
As part of the plea colloquy he signed, Kaplan admitted that from 2018 to 2022, in the course of doing business at M. Kaplan Interiors in Frazer, he “offered and exposed for sale and delivered less than the represented quantity of furniture, including to victims at or above 60 years of age.”….
Kaplan appeared before Judge Allison Bell Royer with his attorney, Mark Cerroni of Media. The guilty pleas came without an agreed-upon sentence between Cerroni and Assistant District Attorney Peter Johnsen, so Royer will decide his sentence at a later date.
Some similar charges are also pending against Kaplan’s wife, Margaret Kaplan. Her trial is pending.
This guy tanked a business that was started in like the 1920s. I find that amazing.
It took a while but justice was served. I wonder if they will just ignore his wife now that they have sentenced him? Only time will tell.
In order to help residents understand how ODD the whole data center process has been in East Whiteland, I will load in documents taken off of the township website.
So back before COVID when data center stuff started being floated, it was a smaller plan. Much smaller like 78,000 square feet and it was going to have a solar field to assist self-sufficiency.
I didn’t rust that then. Why? Because the name we always hear with Green Fig the most, Charles Lyddane, was a financial services professional for decades prior to this. Research indicates he started at Xerox and moved onto financial services at Merrill Lynch and Legg Mason. Translation: that background = money driven, fees and commission driven, correct?
And then all of these Democrats think he’s wunderbar? Do they know how he ran as an endorsed Republican School Board candidate circa 2013? Allow me to quote and old Patch almost press release post as in not a regular article:
Local Republican Committees Jointly Endorse GVSD School Board Candidate Charles Lyddane
Great Valley – On March 9, 2013 Republican committee people representing Republican voters living in Great Valley’s School Board Region II (parts of Republican Areas 9 and 10) endorsed Charlie Lyddane for School Board…After an open process soliciting community input and prominently posting a notice in Malvern Patch seeking interested and qualified candidates for Great Valley School Board, the committee representing Republican voters in Region II met the candidates and caucused, endorsing Charlie Lyddane by a two -thirds vote.
According to Bill Tickner, Committee member and Willistown community leader, “Charlie Lyddane is the businessman we need to represent the Great Valley School community on the School Board. I am proud and pleased that Charlie a pro-education Great Valley parent with a strong background in finance and business development has stepped up to put those skills to work on our behalf. We need someone like Charlie who’s willing to steward scarce taxpayer resources into classroom education first..Mr. Lyddane has lived in Great Valley School District for 15 years and has graduated two children from the District. A graduate of Union College in Schenectady, NY, Mr. Lyddane has a BA in History and also attended the Business School at Union. He started his career at Xerox. He was Vice President of Merrill Lynch and Legg Mason in West Chester for 23 years. As a real estate developer and investor in Chester County for the past 9 years, Mr. Lyddane has significant experience in budget development and implementation, as well as achieving strategic goals in a timely and cost efficient manner. He also has significant experience in Property Management.
According to Mr. Lyddane, “When you are managing shareholder’s money, you must produce a product that is beneficial to those shareholders.
Boom there it is – “you must produce a product that is beneficial to those shareholders.”
That tells you what you need to know, doesn’t it? It’s not about community, or the environment or anything altruistic, just good old fashioned green backs right?
Before I go back to the data center of it all, one more article from his life before Green Fig which makes you wonder is this just like another stock pick? Is this why all of the back and forth?
…Some brokers almost cringe at the term “stock-picker.” It can conjure up visions of reps with frayed nerves and churned accounts.
Not Charlie Lyddane.
“I’m not ashamed to admit that I pick stocks,” says Lyddane, a soloist at Legg Mason in West Chester, Pa. “It’s what a broker is supposed to do. My clients like that kind of help.”…Apparently so. Lyddane reports $1 million in production and $120 million under management. He’s been a broker for 19 years and has never been part of a team.
“I’ve never had the opportunity to have or need a partnership,” Lyddane says. “Besides, I like doing things on my own. No one will care about my clients like I do.”
He thinks it’s wrong to hand off client service. “My clients pay to deal with me,” Lyddane says. “I craft stock portfolios of blue chips with a bent toward technology. I’m their single source, and I like being responsible.”
He is responsible – literally.
With 400 clients and 1,000 accounts, Lyddane uses discretionary account management as a time-saving technique….Although he does his own thing, Lyddane appreciates the help he gets from the firm. “Legg Mason supports a number of teams, but I’ve found them to be very supportive of what I do. I have a great arrangement.”
Anyway, the solar field idea disappeared and then they wanted these box things they called pods. Then I think those disappeared because of maybe crypto currency concerns?
I heard a while back that PECO said something like that data center would be like the second largest site next to the City of Philadelphia and if so, how crazy is that?
Someone I know wrote today:
The Limerick Nuclear plant generates about 2300 MWH (megawatt hours) of electricity per day (with two reactors) enough for 2 million homes
The new proposed data center in town is expected to use about 100-600 MWH.
Or 8% to as much as 48% of the ENTIRE OUTPUT of a single reactor. For one data center. The equivalent of 500,000 homes.
It could actually be MORE than the energy equivalent of 500,000 homes, couldn’t it be?
We have a weak and problematic power grid already – when we have outages they will be first served (residents will get pushed down the grid) and all those diesel generators right? And then you just have to wonder HOW MANY TIMES IS EAST WHITELAND GOING TO LET THIS GUY TRY TO TWEAK A PLAN THAT ALWAYS SEEMS TO HAVE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES WHICH MEANS WHY NOT AN ENTIRE NEW SUBMISSION?
I’m not against responsible development, But when you’re talking about new kinds of technology and new kinds of factories, basically, you need the most updated [municipal] codes available, and our current codes are out of date…We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past.
The past I was in part thinking of is the lithium contamination etc. that was Foote Mineral. Foote was an EPA site. There was a review of the site in 2024, but well, the whole data center of it all wasn’t supposed to be that ginormous yet was it?
After ceasing operations in 1991, the Site owner at the time, Cyprus Foote Mineral Company, arranged for the removal of equipment and for demolition of remaining buildings down to their foundations. In 1998, Frazer Exton Development, LP (FED) purchased the original Property (Parcel 42-3-130) and assumed responsibility for cleaning up the Site. FED also installed a single cap over both the North Quarry and South Quarry as part of cleanup activities. In December 2016, Whiteland Holdings, LP (WH), the holder of the first mortgage on the Property, foreclosed and acquired the Property from FED. In a deed recorded on August 15, 2019, WH sold parcel 42-3-130.2 to Green Fig Land LLC, and on January 31, 2022, WH sold parcel 42-3-130 to Green Fig 11.33 LLC2. At the time of this FYR’s October 2023 Site inspection, the 42-3-130 and 42-3-130.2 parcel owner had, on several occasions, permitted a local electric company to use some uncapped areas of the Site as a laydown space to store lumber. The area is not in constant use. The current 42-3-130 and 42-3-130.2 parcel owner intends to redevelop parcel 42-3-130.2 as the location for a data farm facility. In 2024, construction activities for the data farm facility were initiated on parcel 42-3-130.2.
(2For clarity purposes, Green Fig Land LLC and Green Fig 11.33 LLC are owned by the same individual.)
And of course there is a sneaky bill getting fast tracked through Harrisburg as we speak. HB5121. If you google it before reading it, benignly it is described as “which aims to assist Pennsylvania municipalities in regulating data centers through a model zoning ordinance.”
BULLSHIT. This is that thing they talked about in 2025 that would remove rights from municipalities rendering them helpless in certain zoning situation. It does a band aid slither into the municipalities planning code so there is zoning on data centers. Data Centers can pop up anywhere. It arrives just in time for the Governor to announce his re-election bid. Essentially Johnny Frackenstein (AKA Governor Josh Shapiro) wants to remove local control for communities to reject this. State run and controlled everything and aren’t we experiencing enough of that at present in Washington DC in general? This is a bad bill that has data center developers and operators all wet at the prospect (sorry, yes that’s gross but true.)
Anyway, it’s up to people to turn out in East Whiteland until this thing is for the people and not at the expense of the people. And if you care, look up who is on HB 5121 and give them a ringy dingy and say WTF (just politely.)
Let’s be clear about the data center here. What was originally approved and allowed by East Whiteland you’re not going to cancel that BUT given the size and the expansion they want to do on something that is not yet open and proves it needs. It is like a whole other plan and shoukd be treated as such, right??
Now the data center developer wants to upgrade some technology and move some stuff around. If that is hypothetically beneficial to his plan and would be beneficial to the residents that’s one thing but that does NOT mean the developer should just get a gimme supersizing prize of a half built project not up and running, does it?
And I hear that East Whiteland is putting a live stream on for this very heated topic. Their reticence with that is they don’t want to be hacked again (happened with Zoom) and have to see porn but you know what? how many other municipalities still do Zoom every week? Maybe their Internet safety protocol isn’t strong enough? The planning commission is but the opening salvo here.
Anyway as per East Whiteland’s website:
The Applicant for the proposed Data Center on Swedesford Road will attend the upcoming Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 7:00pm (Livestream Available via Link Below)
The Applicant for the proposed Data Center on Swedesford Road will attend the upcoming Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 7:00pm to present an Amended Plan for the project. In addition to in-person attendance, the meeting will be available to Livestream via the Township Website using the link below. Public comment may be submitted via email to bcarosello@eastwhiteland.org. Please submit comments by 4:00pm on Wednesday.
People need to make sure that they tell every single supervisor and Township staff (politely) if they don’t want this. And they can’t just do it on social media. You have to zoom into the meetings, go to the meetings, send emails. Call media you know to cover it. Residents and those concerned need to make the time, not excuses.
If residents had paid more attention around 2022 when this whole thing was going through initial approval process, maybe we wouldn’t be here today but we will never know as that ship sailed. What hasn’t sailed is the developer does not have the Divine Right of Kings to make his project bigger, does he? That wasn’t what was approved, and it has to go through a whole new planning process from top to the bottom or it should right? I mean a 629,830 square foot increase is not smidge larger is it? “1,026,800 s.f. to 1,656,630 s.f. (along with related increases in building coverage and impervious coverage)” is quite a bit larger, yes?
And people from East Whiteland are contacting East Whiteland about the 55+ development that was approved years ago unavoidably in West Whiteland. Again, that ship sailed. I told people here and people told people other places about all those meetings, and the residents did not pay attention. And the problem with that project is under the Municipalities Planning Code so it was approved. And until that weighty outdated tome in Harrisburg is comprehensively updated to protect our communities, they are going to be targeted by developers for whatever is going to make them the most money in that minute and that is the truth isn’t it?
Also to be noted is there are many many West Whiteland residents who are concerned about the potential supersizing of this data center. They had to deal with this developer when he wanted to put a hydrogen hub right next to their park right in the same area. And that didn’t happen because the residents and supervisors stood up and took action.
In my humble opinion, the supervisors in East Whiteland need to be on the same page as the residents when it comes to data centers. If that developer wants to improve technology, that is mutually beneficial to all or tweak design on plan size approved, that is one thing, and it’s something they should want to do for their bottom line in the future, right? But we are already seeing changes in our power grid from data centers. We run the risk of having well water polluted by these data centers. There are other ways it is harmful to the environment and then there is the sheer noise. So East Whiteland approved a data center and it’s not up and running yet so there is no actual proof that is supersizing is needed at this juncture, is there? It is a developer want, it is not a developer need in my opinion and I’m allowed to have that.
I also of the opinion that we cannot depend on the planning commission to say no to this. I don’t think they have the knowledge necessary to do anything other than pass it along with a rubber stamp. In my opinion, I think they are all going to say unless people turn out and protest that “oh it’s OK. It’s better for people. It’ll bring lots of business and tax revenue” or whatever platitudes get blown up people’s rear ends and there’s no proof that it will do any of those things, but that’s what they’re told isn’t it?
This is who is on the planning commission:
Deborah Abel, Chair Todd Asousa, Vice Chair Bob Logan Bill Wrabley John Laumer Tim Kelly Jaime Damiani
Go to https://www.eastwhiteland.org/ for more information on this project and for telephone numbers and email addresses, etc.
This was a superfund site – EPA- Foote Mineral. The planning commission should know that you can’t just come in with a resubmission like this- it has to start the clock again with a resubmission- where is the impact study? What is the complete feasibility? Planning needs to restart the clock if the developer wishes to expand, isn’t that a truism? Who inspects? Who is the monitoring agency? So many variables.
I just saw this photo (minus the X) posted elsewhere. I feel compelled to address it because it’s the kind of messaging that is counterproductive to protecting our communities and the environment.
It’s the kind of messaging we get from some politicians talking out both sides of their mouth, and from the industry itself, giving false assurance that they won’t pollute or deplete our resources because there are strict environmental regulations in place.
It’s false.
We don’t HAVE anywhere close to adequate rules in place to protect our air and water from this buildout of AI data centers and power plants to fuel them – not to mention protect climate and communities.
Workers? These hyper scale data centers create very few jobs once built – and the intent is to eliminate workers.
And we have a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection that has a history of turning a blind eye to violations by certain industries. And it’s led by a Secretary who has been engaged in backroom dealmaking with these corporations and has promised to deliver Amazon with the “highest level of service, accountability and urgency to meet their project needs”. (See letter in comments obtained through a RTK request.
Let’s not pretend the situation in Pennsylvania is anything different.
And what Ginny said was similarly said by a dear friend today who keeps asking Harrisburg WHO is responsible for watching Data Centers? WHO is the monitoring agency? I mean those who live with the PA DEPs inconsistency in their communities know this is a problem. WHO watches and who watchdogs the entities who are supposed to watch?
Also from Ginny:
Oh, and my opinions are bought to me by the First Amendment. They haven’t repealed that yet as far as I know.
Ok residents, the weekend surprise is essentially the data center developer building in East Whiteland wants to make it BIGGER.
We have a proverbial foot in the door scenario, and IMHO East Whiteland never should have allowed the foot to get there in the first place and I am allowed to have this opinion under the First Amendment.
To QUOTE the township:
📌The Applicant for the proposed Data Center on Swedesford Road will attend the upcoming Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday, January 28, 2026 to present an Amended Plan for the project. The Amended Plan differs from the Previously Approved Plan as follows:
total building square footage has increased from 1,026,800 s.f. to 1,656,630 s.f. (along with related increases in building coverage and impervious coverage)
cooling equipment has been redesigned and relocated from the ground immediately adjacent to the buildings (water-consuming cooling towers) to the rooftop (waterless rooftop chillers) along with corresponding sound mitigation barriers
emergency back-up generators have been relocated from the basement of the buildings to the ground immediately adjacent to the buildings along with corresponding sound mitigation barriers
office uses and loading facilities have been relocated from the southern side of the buildings to the northern side of the buildings facing Swedesford Road
additional trees and landscaping have been proposed on the former sewer lagoons located between the development site and Swedesford Road
design and location of stormwater management facilities, parking lots, and internal circulation areas have been modified
previously proposed microwave towers, antenna yards, and ground-mounted cooling towers have been removed
East Whiteland Township needs to say NO and they need to enable Zoom capability for ALL meetings where this is concerned given the weather and number of residents and neighbors who will be interested.
Again… the weekend surprise is essentially the data center developer for the East Whiteland Data Center on Swedesford next to West Whiteland park land, wants to make it BIGGER.
East Whiteland Township needs to say NO and they need to enable Zoom capability for ALL meetings where this is concerned given the weather and number of residents and neighbors who will be interested.
When we (myself and others) posted about this data center first happening a few years ago, very few people were interested. It was the chorus of crickets.
Recently, some people seemed like they were interested in this again and people wondered where they were a couple of years ago. This is the same developer that West Whiteland turned down for the hydrogen plant.
Once upon a time, I think this developer was like a stock broker or a money manager, but then he saw the dollar signs here didn’t he? So that’s fine if this is his chosen career path, but he shouldn’t detrimentally affect residents in multiple municipalities should he?
I make no secret of the fact that I always thought this was too big a plan for Swedesford Road. And at the time I couldn’t believe the people in developments across the road didn’t seem bothered by this.
Here are some interesting comments so far:
If you Google the project, here’s what comes up (in part):
Key Project Details
Location: 760 Swedesford Road, Malvern, Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Capacity: Planned for 290 MW of power, with significant capacity for 2 million square feet of development.
Partnership: A joint venture between Green Fig Land Company and 1547 Critical Systems Realty.
lol Features: Designed for hyperscale users with potential rooftop solar (up to 7 MW) and high-density, interconnected capabilities.
Sorry, not sorry but residents and residents of neighboring municipalities had better wake up this time around.
The bell on the original data center being built, can’t be on wrong, but residents should have a say and be able to say no to making it bigger.
A neighboring site offers an additional 5 million square feet of development potential.
fifteenfortyseven Critical Systems Realty and Green Fig Land Co. have unveiled the latest advancements at their 100-acre hyperscale data center developmentoutside Philadelphia that could eventually comprise up to 2 million square feet of space. Lease options are now available for build-to-suit, powered shell and turnkey data center space.
Located about 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia in East Whiteland Township, Pa., the site was acquired by GFLC and 1547 in 2022. The development firm had previously received the local authorities’ approval to construct two data centers of about 1 million square feet each. An adjacent property is available for the development of data center buildings totaling up to 5 million square feet.
Malvern is the new Minnesota. This happened yesterday at The Yards apartments in Malvern.
Yes ‘The Yards’ on Lancaster Avenue in Malvern, East Whiteland Township, Chester County, PA.
I have been told that they followed this poor guy from Wawa (corner of Planebrook and Lancaster Avenue) and he was apparently a contractor coming to install carpet. Day jobber laborers have shown up outside that Wawa for as long as it has been there. Apparently there were other people according to the post I borrowed the video from, but it seems like they got away since you only see that one terrified man?
Again, this happened earlier on Friday 1/23/2026. We know nothing about this person. Only now yet another community in this country is feeling terrorized like so many other communities.
And I can tell you, I had people blowing up my phone yesterday morning, driving by, etc. who saw this all unfold. I figured eventually video would show up and it did.
Tell me again this isn’t like 1930s Germany with social media?
I found a video on social media and I took it and added it to a couple other things I found on this event from yesterday. No one is or was impeding law enforcement, or whatever you want to call ICE. I am not impeding anything.
I can tell you this sent chills down my spine.
I can tell you it makes us all afraid to go out within our communities because of the chaos that happens when these people are showing up pulling people out of communities.
I have friends who are US citizens or who are first generation born of immigrant parents who are U.S. citizens who walk around with there passports now because they’re afraid that ICE will pick them up.
And don’t tell me that we have nothing to fear from these people, as we’ve seen they kind of just do what they want, which kind of defeats the purpose of an civilized society with actual law enforcement, doesn’t it?
You will also notice in this video that there was absolutely no, as in zero, local law-enforcement involved.
I’m just grateful that no one bearing witness to this yesterday was killed or injured. I know nothing about whoever it was they took.
The point is and I am allowed this opinion whether anyone likes it or not, is this is reminiscent of 1930s Germany. This isn’t any different than soldiers knocking on people’s doors in Berlin or wherever and taking people away.
We are a nation founded upon immigrants, literally.
So who knows what we are getting, but we are getting a storm. It is just one of those winters.
I do not have photos that are digital of the “Blizzard of 1996” or “The Blizzard of 1978.” But I remember both.
I was turning 14 the spring following the 1978 snow. I remember I built a snow igloo at the edge of my parents’ driveway. It was fun and I could fit inside….but we were not allowed to linger inside because my parents were worried what would happen if it collapsed. It had a bench made of snow inside.
The 1996 snow I also remember. Back then I had an English Springer Spaniel we had to dig a potty path for that was like shoulder high to me on either side. I remember everyone scrambling to find snow plow people, because that was a storm that snow plow guys didn’t show up for. I remember my parents’ then usual people saying “Sorry, just too much snow.“
During 1996 finding snow plow people became like a vision quest and no one wanted to share who they used for fear they would not get plowed out. The other thing about 1996 is I remember people scrambling to get snow away from houses when the thaw started because people were having their basements flood and basement windows cave in from snow. Friends of my parents had a total disaster on their hands because they were downhill from other properties and the snow melting and moving literally did blow lower level windows in. That surpassed the crazy snow of 1987 which no one talks about any longer.
Now 2010 I remember. First Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse of February, 2010. I was living on the Main Line still and we had an indoor fundraiser planned for First Friday Main Line that first February Friday that we had to cancel. That was February 5, 2010.
I remember it was starting to snow when I went out to dinner with friends and a bad past relationship. We went to a restaurant called “Auspicious” on Cricket Ave in Ardmore. That was the night the first blizzard of 2010 began and also the night my entire life changed. We decided to have a snow night dinner in Ardmore with two other couples. It was a “How bad could it get so fast, let’s have dinner” thing.
It had started to snow when we went to Ardmore, and we stopped first at the state store for a bottle of wine. The restaurant was a BYOB. It’s weird what you remember, but I remember of all the weird things that former Eagles coach Dick Vermeil was in the Ardmore Wine & Spirits store doing a wine tasting of his vineyard’s wines. That was the first time I remember seeing him promoting his vineyard. I saw people I knew in the store, including people I had worked on the now-postponed event along with a woman who worked in my friend’s shop.
I remember dinner being nice, and going outside and the snow was coming down fast and furious. There was already a few inches on the ground when we exited the restaurant. What I remember next is the contrast of the quiet whooshy sound of falling snow and my ex flipping out on me in the parking lot because I had accidentally opened the car window of his car while he was cleaning snow off the car. (Mind you he drove a Mazda, not a Benz.)
“You will ruin the motors of my windows!” he screamed at me.
There was already like 5″ of snow on the ground if not more. Dinner was not that long, so it was amazing how fast snow was falling. I remember the lights of Lancaster Avenue blinking like it was past midnight (I do not believe it was even 9:30 PM), and the falling snow and cars sliding all over as we drove home. We kept fishtailing, and not a little, a lot.
February, 2010
As we drove home, my ex screamed at me most of the way home and I remember the combination of all of that being actually rather frightening. I also remember a passing thought of “I can’t do this anymore. If I get home safely, this is over.”
February, 2010
I got out of the car in my driveway, and as I shut the car door he took off. It was in that blizzard I was literally abandoned with his dying dog with me. It was sort of a Lifetime TV moment. Only it was my life and slightly surreal when it happened. It was an odd and hard thing to have happen, but what do you do? You change the locks and move on. And you honor the last few months of a very old dog’s life who was so truly sweet. Months later a friend said to me that God had done a lift out. She was so right. And the truth was, I was never super upset. What happened, happened for the betterment of my life.
Life goes on and you move forward. And lots of snow, once again, got dumped in the river.
Then came December, 2010. My brother in law died on December 22, 2010 of peritoneal mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer of the abdominal lining. He had been diagnosed barely 3 1/2 weeks earlier. My sister was suddenly a young widow with two kids.
In the midst of planning the funeral came the blizzard of December, 2010 that crippled New York City. I remember walking up Park Avenue on the Upper East Side the morning the snow stopped. Instead of being filled with multiple lanes of cars on both sides, Park Avenue was snow filled, not plowed and people like myself walked in the middle of a temporarily car and bus deserted New York City street. And it was quiet. New York City was so silent in the snow.
New York City, December, 2010
It was the craziest feeling being able to stroll in the middle of a snow clogged Park Avenue . The weird juxtaposition of knowing you were on one of the busiest streets of one of the most populated cities, yet there I was strolling like it was a country road. I remember looking up at all the snow-laden buildings that create that multi-billion dollar canyon of Park Avenue. The buildings are so large, and humans so small. It’s funny but for a moment I felt like that little child I once was being pulled on a sled by my mother.
Then we all have the memory of the ice storm of 2014. February. No power for close to 10 days. We didn’t move for days. By the time we were into the week mark without power it was a little like Little House on the Prairie around here. You take a lot of things for granted when you don’t have power.
Cheers went up when the Calvary (PECO) got to us to restore power in 2014. My husband decided during that storm I was too much of a “city girl.” I probably still am. But there were moments after that ice storm that were just breathtaking in the majesty of Mother Nature.
February, 2014
It appears to be another very snowy winter for this winter. I will admit that the thought of another big snow and ice storm is not my favorite idea for the weekend. Stay safe this weekend.
