CoreWeave Kenilworth (NEST) data center, Kenilworth, New Jersey

Construction is underway on CoreWeave's $1.8 billion AI data center at the former Merck & Co. headquarters on Galloping Hill Road in Kenilworth, Union County, New Jersey, and residents are still asking borough officials to take another look. A council meeting on June 16, 2026 ran nearly five hours as residents filled the room and lined the hallway, and it ended with no vote or action to change the project's approvals.

CoreWeave is converting an existing 284,500 square foot lab and manufacturing building known as 11 NEST and adding 108,100 square feet of new construction, for a 392,600 square foot data center planned at 250 megawatts. The company first leased the site in 2024 and in August 2025 bought the facility and 27 adjacent acres for $322 million; the state awarded the project a $250 million tax credit in exchange for 143 jobs kept in New Jersey over ten years. The Planning Board signed off on the project in May 2025, and it drew little notice until word spread on social media in spring 2026: "Social media, that's the only way you'll hear about it here even though we're only 200 yards from the location," Union County resident Brent Krueger told News 12.

At the June meeting, resident Toni Johnson, who said she relies on an oxygen tank, told the council: "If they put any air pollution more than what we have into the air, I'm gonna be dead by Christmas." A residents' group, the Union County Residents Alliance Coalition, says borough records describe 31 backup generators and a cooling yard of 29 chillers, and that no redevelopment agreement had been signed as of June 2026.

Mayor Linda Karlovitch has defended the project, telling News 12 that CoreWeave is "using a closed loop cooling system and it avoids continuous use of local water," and that the company is paying for a substation so its costs are not passed on to residential ratepayers. CoreWeave says an acoustics study it commissioned expects 42 to 49 decibels at nearby homes in normal operation, and that the cooling loop needs about 310,000 gallons of water only once, at startup.

New Jersey lawmakers moved to end the tax credit program that funded Kenilworth's award, and Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed the End Data Center Tax Credits Act on August 27, 2026, but it leaves CoreWeave's $250 million award in place because it ends only the program's uncommitted credits. With local approvals granted, borough officials say their role now is mainly to make sure the project follows the plans as it is built, and the state award can be paid out over five years starting in 2027 if CoreWeave meets its requirements.