Data centers in Union County, New Jersey: 1 project mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Union County's data center is going up in Kenilworth, on the 103-acre former Merck campus, now the Northeast Science and Technology Center, which borough officials said had been vacant since 2023. The borough council approved the sale of land there to CoreWeave in 2025, and the planning board approved the redevelopment, called the Galloping Hill Technology Campus, in May 2025. Mayor Linda Karlovitch told News 12 construction should be finished by the end of 2027. Residents learned of it late. "I wasn't notified at all," said Kenilworth resident William Daughtry. "I know it might be too late to stop it," said Diane Moxley of Garwood at a May 2026 protest outside borough hall. "But I'm hoping if we get the numbers out from Kenilworth and the surrounding communities, maybe we can get the municipal government to listen to us." Borough leaders told the crowd the window to stop the project had long passed.

At a planning board meeting that month, resident Danielle Palmie described what had been approved: "a 280,000 square foot building converted to a 24/7 industrial energy use, 250 megawatts of electrical load, 50,000 square foot exterior chiller yard, 31 diesel generators on concrete pads." "What is an AI data center in the face of a drought?" asked Imani Nam Burton. The board unanimously tabled the borough's 2026 master plan to review the concerns. "For the public, we heard you. You think we didn't? We heard," said its chairman, Rich Picerno. In June officials defended the deal. "We have a vacant industrial park that doesn't benefit the town being vacant," said Council President William Mauro. "They have their own electric grid, they are not tapping into our electric grid at all," the mayor said. "And they're not using water." She said the council still had to approve a redevelopment agreement with CoreWeave, and negotiations were continuing. "We are being asked to trust the process that has provided very little transparency and very few concrete answers," said Victor Gomez of Union Township.

Linden went the other way. In September 2026 Mayor Derek Armstead and the City Council moved to introduce an ordinance banning AI data centers in every zoning district. "After a comprehensive review of the potential environmental, infrastructure, and quality-of-life impacts, we concluded that this type of development is not right for our city," Armstead said. By late August at least 69 New Jersey municipalities had banned data centers, according to the Pinelands Alliance, as cited by the New Jersey Globe.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.