Smithfield Gateway Data Center, East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania

The Smithfield Gateway data center, a 250,000-square-foot building proposed by developers DEPG Mosier Associates LP and DEPG of Shawnee II LP for the Mosier Farm Drive corridor near East Stroudsburg, Smithfield Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania, is waiting on a conditional use hearing before the township's Board of Supervisors. The township says the hearing must be scheduled within 60 days of receiving the application, that dates are still pending, and that it is looking for a larger venue because it expects a big turnout.

The conditional use application describes a single two-story data center of 250,000 square feet, though an earlier sketch plan for the Smithfield Gateway site showed two data center buildings, each with a 125,000-square-foot footprint, plus a power substation. The application includes an acoustical evaluation of sound emissions, and the township posts the documents, engineer reviews and the developer's responses on its website.

A petition to stop the data center was circulating by March 2026, and the township has since rewritten its data center rules. On May 6, 2026, the Board of Supervisors adopted Resolution No. 621, starting the state's curative amendment process to revise the ordinance, after at least two hours of public comment, Township Manager Julia Heilakka wrote. She told residents Pennsylvania law does not let townships ban a use outright the way some other states can.

On August 12, 2026 the board adopted the amendment, creating a new H-1 Heavy Industrial district from the southern part of the M-1 Industrial zone; data centers are now allowed as a conditional use only there, no longer in the Economic Development or M-1 districts. The township said it drew a 500-foot buffer from residential zoning and sensitive receptors, and that anything beyond that would likely be exclusionary.

Across Monroe County, 14 municipalities had adopted data center ordinances by July 2026, according to the Pocono Record.

At the conditional use hearing, the developer must show the project meets the ordinance's standards, and opponents must then show it would cause greater harm than normal for a data center, the township explains. The Board of Supervisors decides, and either side can appeal to the Monroe County Court of Common Pleas.

Even if the board grants the use, the developer would still have to go through land development review before building anything. A hearing date has not yet been set; when the township schedules it, the date will be posted on the conditional use page.