Project Gravity Data Center, Archbald Borough, Pennsylvania

Corscale, a data center developer with campuses in Northern Virginia, now owns the 186-acre Project Gravity site in Archbald Borough, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, and says it will submit final land development plans for the campus “imminently.” The site was sold on December 23, 2025 by Archbald 25 Developer LLC, the Western Hospitality Partners entity that first proposed it, to US Gravity Purchaser LLC, tied to Corscale's investment partner Affinius Capital.

The plan is five one-story and two two-story data center buildings on mine-spoiled land, and Corscale says it is in serious talks with a large computing tenant. The first developer told the state it expected to invest $5 billion and create 300 permanent jobs.

Corscale's Erik Draaisma said the campus is on track for closed-loop cooling and will use a fraction of the diesel backup generators allowed. Project Gravity was expected to draw 360,000 gallons of water a day from Lake Scranton, which serves 134,570 people.

The site takes in the Valley View Estates mobile home park and borders 18 homes and State Game Lands 307. Park residents received eviction notices in July 2025, shortly after Project Gravity was announced, with an April 15, 2026 deadline to leave. “These people have no resources,” said Archbald resident Ann Beynon.

Draaisma said the design will keep most operations away from the northeast corner of the property, where most of the homes are. “It's something new, and it's something different, and it's something that's become easy to dislike,” he said.

Project Gravity was a permitted use under Archbald's previous zoning rules, so it skipped the borough's conditional use process. Residents of Stop Archbald Data Centers, which has more than 5,000 members, pushed for tighter rules, and some have appealed the borough's updated data center zoning in court.

At the end of April 2026 the state removed Project Gravity from the PA Permit Fast Track program, telling the developer its “lack of responsiveness and unwillingness to provide a transparent overview of the project” led to the removal. Governor Josh Shapiro later said Archbald had the most impact on his thinking when he issued his data center standards executive order in August 2026.

Archbald has six proposed data center campuses, the most of any municipality in Pennsylvania. Project Gravity would be bordered by Project Scott and Project North, with Project Boson across Eynon Jermyn Road and the Wildcat Ridge AI Data Center Campus further down the road. Together the campuses would cover 14 percent of the town.

The project still needs final land development approval from Archbald Borough, plus wetland and waterway permits from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, before construction can begin.