Falls Township residents spoke out against the 250-acre artificial intelligence or AI data center being built in their community during a regular meeting Wednesday of Bucks County Commissioners.
Residents seemed worried and angry at the ongoing construction occurring in their neighborhoods.
NorthPoint Development purchased 1,800 acres of land in Falls Township in January 2021 for about $160 million dollars. The land sits at the former U.S. Steel site, now called the Keystone Trade Center.
Last year, NorthPoint revised their initial plans for the land. They decided to dedicate a portion of the land towards a “digital infrastructure campus.”
North Falls Township Board of Supervisors met in March of last year and unanimously approved the new plan, with the state fast tracking the project a month later.
In June of last year, Amazon announced they would be taking up residence in the 250-acres of land that NorthPoint set aside in a historic $20 billion-dollar statewide investment.
Residents were unaware that Amazon wouldn’t be building an average warehouse and laying the groundwork instead on a massive AI data center.
The Falls Township Board of Supervisors, on the other hand, was fully aware what the land was going to be used for when they approved NorthPoint’s land revisions in March 2025. A year after their decision, residents are finally catching onto what is really going on.
Despite ongoing pushbacks from the community, including a recent petition that has gained nearly 4,000 signatures and a protest, the development has been moving forward at a steady pace.
At Wednesday’s Commissioners meeting, multiple residents of Falls Township voiced their concerns.
Republican Jennifer Metzger, who ran for Falls Township Supervisor last year, views the data center as a “catastrophic economic deception” and described it as a “mass bait and switch.”
“In 2022, the project (Keystone Trade Center) promised 10,000 local jobs. Today those warehouse jobs are gone. The benefits transferred to Amazon, but the employment vanished, yielding a pathetic 1.2% (125 jobs) of what they promised,” Metzger said.
Another resident of Falls Township, Wayne David Bell, voiced his opposition to commissioners during Wednesday’s meeting; often raising his voice.
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He described the data center as a “regional disaster wrapped in a local NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement),” and that Amazon would act as a “parasitic drain” on the Falls Township energy grid.
“Amazon just applied for permits to fire up 280 nitro gas fired jet turbine engines and three diesel locomotive back up engines. Right in our own backyard,” said Bell. “This is not innovation; it is a catastrophic greenhouse gas smoke screen.”
Bell ruffled some feathers after announcing “county officials claim their hands are tied. Your’s are not!”
“This is a county-wide infrastructure crisis. Bucks County faces poison air, bioaccumulation risk and skyrocketing PECO bills.”
Diane Ellis-Marseglia, chair of the Bucks County Board of Commissioners, asked security to remove Bell after she claimed he was unnecessarily yelling.
Commissioners did not comment about the data center during the meeting. After the meeting, commissioners refused to take a position on AI data center construction in a further request for comment.
Falls Township is hosting a Town Hall meeting about the data center on July 14, with PECO, Amazon and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection set to give presentations followed by a Q&A session.
