Homer City Energy Campus data center, Homer City, Pennsylvania

Amazon wants to buy about 2,200 acres of the Homer City Energy Campus, in Center and Blacklick townships near Homer City in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, and build 39 data centers there, next to the 4.5-gigawatt natural gas power plant that Homer City Redevelopment is building on the site of the old coal plant. On September 9, 2026, the Indiana County Planning Commission tabled Amazon Data Services' preliminary master land development plan for the data center campus after more than 100 people packed the courthouse, and commissioners said they might bring in county or outside engineers to assess it.

Amazon's project narrative describes 39 two-story data centers about 70 feet tall, each with a footprint of about 112,500 square feet, on six sites: Bruner, Green and Rura in Center Township and Helen, West and Harvey/Gaston in Blacklick Township. Construction would start in December 2026, subject to permits, and finish in 2036. Power would come from FirstEnergy, backed by the new gas plant, and Amazon says it would use existing water-withdrawal rights and return non-contact cooling water to the Homer City station for reuse. The company projects 1,500 to 2,000 permanent jobs paying $80,000 to $100,000 on average, says it will not seek local or county tax incentives, and has offered a community benefits agreement. Amazon has pledged at least $20 billion in Pennsylvania, and a spokesman said in August that it had no definitive agreement with Homer City Redevelopment.

The gas plant is being built on a 3,200-acre site and is due online in 2028; the old Homer City Generating Station, a 2-gigawatt coal plant, ran from 1969 to 2023. Homer City Redevelopment CEO Corey Hessen said more than 1,800 people were building it in August. Environmental groups including PennFuture, the Clean Air Council, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice asked the state Department of Environmental Protection to reconsider its approval of the plant, saying it would be the largest source of carbon dioxide pollution in Pennsylvania. The plant's proposed wastewater permit would allow 6.84 million gallons a day into Blacklick Creek, a stocked trout stream, at up to 110 degrees, and the Mountain Watershed Association says that could be more than 30% of the creek's flow in summer. That permit covers the power plant only, not any discharge from the data centers.

Residents learned of Amazon's interest from a public records request: Concerned Residents of Western Pennsylvania said the request brought to light an August 2025 email exchange between an Amazon economic development manager and Gov. Josh Shapiro's office. At the planning commission, residents raised noise, water damage and unanswered questions, and one speaker used the meeting "to directly tell Amazon that Indiana County does not welcome you." Another speaker said a project map showed dashed lines across their property although they had never been contacted or signed any agreement. A third welcomed the prospect of jobs for her son: "Thank you for bringing hope to people here, to the students that are graduating from our school system." California attorney J. Byron Fleck and supporters in Indiana County have again pushed a proposed county ordinance to ban non-disclosure agreements.

Amazon is asking the Indiana County Planning Commission to approve a preliminary master land development plan for a six-phase campus, and the commission has tabled it while it keeps asking questions. Amazon also says it will follow Gov. Shapiro's data center standards, under an executive order that has the Department of Environmental Protection review permit applications only from developers who commit to them.