The 750-seat auditorium at Colonial Middle School was nearly full on Thursday, Aug. 6, for the latest hearing on a proposed data center at 900 Conshohocken Road in Plymouth Meeting. Outside, Kaden Beegle stood with a sign in one hand and a boombox in the other, playing climate anthems for the crowd filing in.
Beegle, a 33-year-old Norristown IT worker, has become a fixture at data center zoning meetings across Montgomery County. Social media users dubbed him "boombox guy" after spotting him at multiple hearings this summer.
"If anybody's going to call me anything, I guess showing up with a boombox, I'm the boombox guy," Beegle told Main Line Media News on Aug. 6.
He bought the speaker about three months ago and built a playlist around climate change songs by artists including Naethan Apollo, Chris Matthews, Seth Staton Watkins and Jesse Welles. The idea, he said, was to replace the microphone chants that kept costing him his voice with music that could deliver the message for him.
Beegle told WHYY after the hearing that he rejects the developer's argument that a data center qualifies as manufacturing under Plymouth Township's zoning code. He called the proposal "essentially a power plant" because of the generators required to run it around the clock.
A packed, rowdy hearing
Inside the auditorium, the mood matched the music's energy. The hearing was interrupted multiple times as residents booed, cursed and shouted at the developer's attorney and expert witness, according to WHYY. The crowd grew so loud at one point that the court reporter had difficulty transcribing.
The Plymouth Township Zoning Hearing Board granted party status to Conshohocken Borough, five nearby residents and one Whitemarsh man who cited air quality concerns tied to medical conditions in his family, according to MoreThanTheCurve. Norristown's request for party status was denied.
Developer Brian O'Neill, through MLP Ventures, wants to convert 10 former Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill buildings on the 66-acre Schuylkill River site into a nearly 2-million-square-foot data center with standby generators and gas turbines. O'Neill has said the project would generate $424 million in tax revenue over 20 years and create 800 permanent jobs, per a report he commissioned.
As we reported Friday, Aug. 7, Plymouth Township Council formally opposes the application.
Neighbors speak out
Ardis Leukens, who lives about 500 feet from the site, said the developer isn't listening. Lavone Gregory, who has lived roughly 200 feet from the property since 1988, said she worries about noise, light pollution and health impacts on her sister, who has asthma and lives across the street. Gregory told WHYY she may have to consider moving if the project is approved.
An online petition opposing the data center has collected more than 4,000 signatures.
Beyond Plymouth
Beegle's activism stretches past one township. He has attended packed Upper Merion Township Planning Commission meetings, where he doubled as an informal parking attendant, flipping his "no data centers" sign to read "parking full" when lots overflowed. He also spoke at a Norristown Municipal Council meeting in July, urging the borough to make its own proposed data center ordinance "airtight."
A veteran of Black Lives Matter and anti-ICE demonstrations who ran for Norristown council in the 2026 primary, Beegle said he sees the data center fight as part of a broader environmental cause rooted in Pennsylvania's constitutional right to clean air and water.
What's next
The zoning board continued the case to Monday, Aug. 17, but no testimony will be heard at that session. The board will announce a date for the next evidentiary hearing, expected in September. Plymouth Township launched a dedicated Data Center Information webpage on Friday, Aug. 7, with access to recorded meetings and township statements.
