The Pennsylvania Game Commission on Saturday approved a land swap in Montgomery County that many residents believe could result in an AI data center proposal.

The commissioners greenlighted the swap in a 6-3 vote at the meeting in Harrisburg. Connecticut-based developer Limerick Town Center, LLC, is set to obtain the state game lands next to its property in Limerick, the former site of the Publicker distillery at the Linfield Industrial Park.

The land swap will give the warehouse developer 55 acres of what is now State Game Lands 234, located off Main Street. In return, the game commission will receive 614 acres across three counties — including a 60-acre plot of land in Limerick that adjoins the southern part of State Game Lands 234 and Delaware County’s first-ever state game lands. Pennsylvania game lands are primarily used for hunting, hiking, fishing and wildlife habitat.

It’s unclear what Limerick Town Center’s plans are for its new plot of land. The property is zoned Heavy Industrial, which would allow for the development of an artificial intelligence, or AI, data center and other facilities. It is located three miles from the site of a recent data center proposal in Limerick.

Area residents have raised concerns about the impact a development could have on the Schuylkill River, one of the main drinking water sources in Philadelphia.

Local residents condemned the land swap on social media and at a Limerick Township Board of Supervisors meeting last week, where supervisors voted to write the game commission a letter of opposition.

Supervisors said in the letter that the town would lose vital public land and a “critical buffer” that protects local neighborhoods from development. They also expressed concerns about the impacts it would have on wildlife habitat, and that it could set a precedent of using state game lands as a “land bank to address private development restraints,” the letter reads.

Multiple residents drove up to Harrisburg on Saturday to testify at the game commission’s meeting, despite the impending snowstorm.

The 60 acres that the game commission will receive along the Schuylkill River is a floodplain, Limerick resident Beverly Echols said. This would make it harder for people to hunt and explore that property.

“Even though you’re not making the decision about the data center, you’re facilitating it,” she told the commission.

What the land swap entails

Limerick Town Center is proposing to build two warehouses totaling 1.92 million square feet on the former Publicker Distillery site in Limerick. The site is located at 1301 Main Street, next to the Schuylkill River.

In addition to State Game Lands 234, the approved land swap will give the developer a 200-foot right-of-way adjoining the warehouse site.

In return, the developer will give the game commission 377 acres in Bern Township, Berks County. It also will give the state 177 acres in Edgmont Township to create what would be the first state game land in Delaware County.

The 60 acres that the game commission is getting adjacent to the site is mainly wetlands and isn’t as suitable for industrial development.

Data center opposition

State Sen. Katie Muth notified people about the proposed land swap in a Facebook post on Jan. 16.

“Anywhere near high-voltage transmission lines is a sitting duck for a data center,” the caption reads. “If this swap goes through, we are one step closer to turning our communities into Data Center Alley 2.0.”

Earlier this month, an attorney for an undisclosed developer proposed plans for a 1.4-million-square-foot data center on the property, near Philadelphia Premium Outlets. State Games Lands 234 is a few miles away from this site and the Limerick Clean Energy Center, a nuclear power plant.

SGL 234 is the only other location in Limerick Township that is within the data center zoning overlay district, the Pottstown Mercury reported.

Developers have also proposed data centers in the rural townships of East Vincent and East Coventry, all of which are within a few miles from State Game Lands 234. If they are approved, the area would have 4.7 million square feet of data center campuses by the Schuylkill River.

The Limerick Township Board of Supervisors meeting took place on Jan. 20, four days after Muth posted on Facebook. Both the meeting and overflow rooms were above capacity, forcing attendees to stand in the hallway and watch the meeting through Facebook Live on their phones.

Residents from East Vincent passed out flyers opposing data center development. One of them, Joanna Binelli, told the Local she hoped that the commission would vote against the land swap.

“I think that’s something that is really upsetting because it shows that they’re not taking into consideration the people who are concerned about this,” she said after the game commission meeting on Saturday.

Township manager Daniel Kerr said the township had just learned of the proposal last week. And plans for the land would have to go through the township.

He added that the board had received no information about a data center and could not answer any questions about it.

Board chair Connie Lawson said the township could oppose the swap, but only the game commission could stop it.

Dozens of residents expressed their opposition to the swap, voicing concerns about its potential impact on hunters, wildlife, traffic, noise levels and the environment. Only one person supported it.

At the end of the meeting, the board voted to send a “strongly worded” letter of opposition to the game commission.

Game Commission meeting

Nearly a dozen people expressed their opposition to the land swap during the public comment period on Saturday. Fred Ebert, a Montgomery County resident and owner of a civil engineering firm, told commissioners that the swap would encourage more private developers to trade and build on state game lands.

“If you do this land swap, you’ve seen the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “The political pressure you’re under is going to double and triple.”

East Vincent resident Steve Hacker said the vegetation on the state game lands helps prevent pollutants from flowing into the Schuylkill River and the swap could erase that buffer.

In a presentation about the land swap on Friday, David J. Gustafson mentioned that the area’s zoning allows for a data center. Gustafson, deputy executive director for the PA game commission, said Limerick Town Center LLC “will” build its Limerick property and the land exchange is necessary to mitigate the impact of its development on state game lands.

Muth, the state senator, said during the Saturday meeting that she felt compelled to speak after receiving “never-ending texts and calls” about the game commission’s presentation. She told the Local on Monday that the commission’s vote “represents a failure of state government.”

“Trustees do not give away public land because a private project creates pressure along the boundary of that land. Trustees protect the land,” she said at the Saturday meeting.

Commissioner Todd Pride defended the integrity of the commission and rejected people’s claims that team members were being misleading. He also said that by his calculations, the game commission would gain $20 million worth of property in this swap.

“A lot of these situations are very sticky, they’re very hairy, they’re very messy,” Pride said. “But I wanted to just reiterate the credibility that I have seen from the staff and the hard work you all do.”

“We’ve had many, many of these transactions,” he added. “We have been presented with similar types of transactions since I’ve been here. And being a partner with the agency with the work I do for almost 10 years, I’ve never seen a transaction come back and be presented with, ‘We did something that was not in the best interest of wildlife and of hunters.’”

“They could establish the first state game lands out there in Delaware county. We don’t take these decisions lightly… we understand if there’s implications and winners and losers. But the winner’s side is pretty heavy in this deal,” said commissioner Kristen Koppenhafer, who voted for the land exchange.

Lawson, chair of the Limerick board of supervisors, thanked the residents and public officials for speaking out in a statement Monday.

“I am deeply disappointed that the Pennsylvania Game Commission chose not to stand with the community who have clearly and formally opposed this land swap,” she said in the statement.