Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus acquires land in Archbald

Two New York companies have secured nearly 500 mountainside acres above the Eynon and Sturges sections of Archbald, intended for the borough’s largest proposed data center campus.

Brooklyn-based Cornell Realty Management LLC applied to Archbald in December for the Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus, which proposes to build 14 two-story data centers, each up to 80 feet tall with a footprint of 202,340 square feet, on 574.2 acres along Business Route 6 and Route 247, or Wildcat Road. The two New York-based limited liability companies with similar names — one directly linked to Cornell Realty Management — acquired 495 acres of the proposed campus on March 20, according to a real estate transaction recorded Thursday and a sales agreement recorded Monday with the Lackawanna County Recorder of Deeds.

The data center campus has not been approved by the Archbald Borough Council, which plans to hold its third public hearing on the project in April.

Wildcat Ridge became Lackawanna County’s first proposed data center campus when representatives contacted Archbald in January 2025 during a council work session. The campus is one of six proposed data center projects in Archbald and one of at least a dozen throughout Lackawanna County.

It gained notoriety thanks to its demands for water and electricity. The campus could use just over 3.3 million gallons of water per day during the hottest summer temperatures, while still needing 1.6 gigawatts, or 1,600 megawatts, of electricity to power its data centers. For comparison, the Lackawanna Energy Center natural gas power plant in Jessup produces 1,485 megawatts.

The campus could have up to 41 backup diesel generators per data center, each with a 2,000-gallon fuel tank, totaling 574 generators and 1,148,000 gallons of diesel fuel, according to testimony from project representatives at public hearings this year. Plans also call for two user substations and a PPL Electric Utilities switching station. The switching station is part of a large PPL infrastructure project centered in Archbald.

In addition to the data centers, Cornell plans to build 316,000 square feet of commercial space, including a 50,000 square foot grocery store with 1,800 square feet of retail space; two four-story buildings with an area of ​​85,000 square feet, one of which is mixed use and the other an office; and a 96,000-square-foot parking garage with approximately 360 spaces. At a January public hearing on the development, the campus project manager referred to the grocery store as “Trader Joe’s, or something like that.”

The land was previously planned for 1,930 multi-family residential units, 120 residential lots and approximately 1.2 million square feet of commercial space, occupying an area similar to the data center campus.

On March 20, two companies obtained the majority of land needed for the campus.

Pine Hill Dream Inc., which describes itself as having an office in Eynon while using a New York address, purchased 245 acres from Pine Line Inc. of Eynon for $3.2 million, according to a real estate transaction recorded Thursday. Pine Line and Pine Hill Dream entered into a commercial purchase memorandum of understanding for the property last year on May 16, which was recorded with the county on May 21.

The 245 acres make up the upper portion of the campus and extend from the Blakely border near PPL’s ​​existing Lackawanna substation continuing east over Business Route 6. Jeffrey and Alan Rudalavage signed the deed on behalf of Pine Line as president and secretary, respectively; Abraham Rosenberg signed for Pine Hill Dream at the address 7 Meribeth Lane, Monroe, New York. The act provides exceptions for existing businesses: Mark Rudalavage Law Office at 171 Scranton Carbondale Highway, Pine Line Auto Sales showroom and parking lot at 151 Scranton Carbondale Highway, Krisiak Chiropractic Office at 157 Scranton Carbondale Highway and Pine Line Auto Sales Garage.

On the same day that Pine Hill Dream and Pine Line closed on the 245 acres, Archbald Pines LLC, 75 Huntington St., Brooklyn, New York, entered into a memorandum of understanding of purchase and sale with Archbald Ventures LLC, 1 Executive Blvd., Suite 101, Suffern, New York, for the adjacent 250 acres located on the lower half of the mountain, below Pine Hill Dream’s newly acquired land, according to a copy of the agreement recorded on Monday. Closing will take place on June 1, but the buyer can extend it until December 31, according to the agreement.

Isaac Hager signed the agreement as a member of Archbald Pines; Hager is listed as managing partner of Cornell Realty Management in Wildcat Ridge’s Dec. 15 conditional use application filed with Archbald. Although the application uses the address 347 Flushing Ave., Suite 800, Brooklyn, for Cornell Realty, plans attached to the application refer to Cornell’s address as 75 Huntington St., Brooklyn – the same address as Archbald Pines LLC.

Pine Hill Dream and Archbald Pines also retained the same law firm, Jeffrey Zwick & Associates PC.

Pine Line Inc. previously sold the 250 acres to Archbald Ventures LLC for $4 million, according to a real estate transaction recorded on Feb. 22, 2024.

Cornell Realty’s conditional use application for the Wildcat Ridge Data Center campus directly references both properties as part of its application. The company also plans to purchase land from Timothy J. Seaman, James L. and Michael A. Booth, pursuant to its conditional use application.

As of Monday afternoon, no recent deeds or contracts of sale had been filed with Lackawanna County for the Seaman or Booth properties, which reportedly total about 80 acres.

Archbald previously held hearings for the campus on Jan. 28 and March 10, during which the proposal was met with resistance from the public and elected leaders, including Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan and state Rep. Kyle Mullins, D-112, Blakely.

At the conclusion of the March 10 hearing, the district announced that the next hearing on Wildcat Ridge would take place on April 13.