Harrisburg Data Center, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

The Dauphin County General Authority agreed in August 2025 to sell the Dauphin Highlands Golf Course, about 250 acres in Swatara Township and Steelton just outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for $45.6 million to Harrisburg I, LLC, a buyer formed by Dallas-based Provident Realty that plans a data center there. The sale is not final: the data center developer still has to secure water, power, a highway occupancy permit and land-use approvals, and the course would stay open until a tentative closing at the end of 2027.

The authority said Provident's offer was one of six proposals after it issued a request in February 2025, and that the sale would let it pay off $13 million of debt on a course that has consistently lost money. "Harrisburg I, LLC's proposal is approximately 10 times higher than the recorded value of the land," said board chair Barbara Zemlock. Because the authority is a public owner, the course pays no property taxes, and the authority says a private owner would produce significant revenue for the Central Dauphin School District, the township, the county and the state. Board member Eric Epstein put the open questions plainly: "They need to get water. They're going to need to get power. They need to get a highway occupancy permit, navigate land use."

Provident has had data center plans turned away before: a 200-acre proposal in northwest Indiana was turned down, and it then pitched a seven-building campus in Burns Harbor, Indiana. Swatara Township's Board of Commissioners has since drafted rules for data centers: a July 2026 version of a zoning amendment would cap data center buildings at 105 feet, set them back at least 210 feet from adjoining lot lines, require a landscape buffer at least 70 feet deep and require sound studies. Elsewhere in Dauphin County, Londonderry Township weighed a data center overlay district in 2025, and resident Richard Sauerwine warned that cooling towers "can use up to 20,000 gallons of water a day."

What happens next: Provident's due diligence, the township's final vote on its data center ordinance, and any land development plan, which would go to the Swatara Township Board of Commissioners and, for the Steelton portion, the borough.