(Credit for Photo: Photo Provided with Release Courtesy of Pitt Race International Complex)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Big Beaver Borough, PA) Residents in Big Beaver went to a meeting yesterday to voice their opinions about the data center company Switch planning to build a data center complex at the former Pittsburgh International Race Complex in Wampum. 

This meeting was originally scheduled to be held in the Big Beaver Borough municipal building, but it was moved outside because so many people attended. 

Switch is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada and they are planning to convert the 400-acre former Pitt Race facility into a 600,000-square-foot data center complex that will have three buildings.  

Their proposed development would span an area roughly equivalent to 300 football fields. 

Neighbors in Big Beaver have raised concerns about the project’s planned data center.  

They have addressed water usage, noise, pollution, whether their electric bills would increase, what more traffic would mean for residents that live nearby and about possible problems with old, closed mines that are underground at the Pitt Race facility in Wampum. 

The Big Beaver Borough council is still asking for environmental studies and changes to this project before voting on Switch’s proposal.