Plymouth Township's Zoning Hearing Board holds a special meeting Thursday, Oct. 15, on developer Brian O'Neill's data center proposal at 900 Conshohocken Road. The hearing comes as Upper Merion Township, which rejected O'Neill's data center plans in August, now faces his lawsuits and is pushing to bulk up its legal budget for the fight.

The Oct. 15 session begins at 7 p.m. at the Plymouth Township Municipal Building, Karen B. Weiss Meeting Room, according to the township's notice. Public comment will not be taken at this hearing. The evidentiary proceedings are expected to span multiple sessions, and the township said it will announce in advance when a future hearing will include public comment.

The hearing will be livestreamed. A public viewing location is set up at the Greater Plymouth Community Center, 2910 Jolly Road, Plymouth Meeting.

At Upper Merion's Friday, Oct. 9, public meeting, Commissioner Greg Waks called on the township to increase legal services funding in its 2027 operating budget to defend against lawsuits O'Neill and his firm, MLP Ventures, filed in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, Patch reported.

"Litigation is expensive and you cannot mount a strong legal defense on the cheap," Waks said.

No specific dollar figure for the proposed increase has been made public.

The litigation stems from the Upper Merion board's Aug. 13 vote to deny all five of O'Neill's data center land development applications. The rejected proposal called for more than 4 million square feet of data center space across sites on Renaissance Boulevard, Horizon Drive and Swedeland Road, according to Fox 29. More than 20,000 Upper Merion residents had signed a petition opposing the project.

O'Neill, CEO of MLP Ventures, said he would appeal. He told 6abc on Aug. 14, the day after the vote, that his plan had been approved by the township's zoning officer and that he was "absolutely going to appeal to get that plan approved."

He had already filed a lawsuit on Aug. 12 seeking a court order to force the board to grant an extension on his application. A judge initially granted an injunction but vacated it on Aug. 13, clearing the way for the board's vote.

Plymouth's own data center fight

O'Neill's Plymouth proposal would convert 10 steel mill buildings at the former Cleveland-Cliffs plate finishing facility into a data center with standby generators and gas turbines. Community organizer Ardis Lukens told Main Line Media News in August that approximately 9,000 people live within a square mile of the proposed site.

Plymouth's path with O'Neill has been rocky. His first data center application was withdrawn in November 2025 after the township determined the applicant lacked legal standing because the agreement of sale with the property owner was not finalized, 6abc reported at the time. O'Neill resubmitted a new application in spring 2026.

A Sept. 17 ZHB hearing was canceled hours before it was set to begin due to what the township called an "administrative oversight." The meeting agenda had not been properly advertised, The Reporter noted.

Plymouth Township Council formally opposed the data center application in July. Council Chairwoman Lynne Viscio accused the developer of trying to bully the municipality and said O'Neill had filed a second application challenging the validity of the township's zoning ordinance, according to Main Line Media News. In her July 27 statement, Viscio pledged the township would not abandon its values or sacrifice quality of life "for any development or developer."

The Oct. 15 ZHB hearing is the next scheduled proceeding in Plymouth's case.