Data centers in Erie County, New York: 3 projects mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

A $2 billion AI data center planned for the 140-acre former Tonawanda Coke site, on the Niagara River in the Town of Tonawanda, is on hold after developer Riverview Innovation and Technology Campus paused its application and the town passed its own moratorium. The proposed 500,000-square-foot building would need about 300 megawatts of power and a $50 million substation; developer Jon Williams has led an estimated $100 million cleanup of a site a local assemblyman calls "one of the most dangerously toxic properties in the United States." On August 3, 2026, the Town Board voted unanimously for a one-year moratorium on data centers of 20 megawatts or more.

Riverview asked to pause its application in June 2026 because of a backlog at the New York grid operator, which studies whether the system can carry a load that size; the company said it was not abandoning the site. Residents packed a June 3 planning board meeting: Jamie Moore warned that cooling systems "typically operate at 75 to 105 decibels or greater," and one speaker compared the site to Love Canal. State Senator Jeremy Zellner said the project would use "just about as much electricity as my entire district uses." In July Governor Kathy Hochul came to Tonawanda Town Hall to sign an executive order pausing new data centers above 50 megawatts for up to a year.

Town Supervisor John Flynn said Riverview's was the only data center application in the town and that "there is no back door" around the moratorium. Riverview said it would review the vote with legal counsel "to determine our path forward." Buffalo already has one operating data center, run by H5 Data Centers downtown; a planned Tesla Dojo supercomputer nearby at the RiverBend solar plant was scrapped.

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.