CoreWeave
Lancaster AI Hub (216 Greenfield Road and 1375 Harrisburg Pike)
community benefits agreement, approved, approved 2025-11-20
Operator: CoreWeave (initial tenant, Building 1)
Developer: Chirisa Technology Parks affiliates (LPE 01 PROPCO LLC, Greenfield Road Owner LLC, Harrisburg Place Owner LLC) with Machine Investment Group; financed by Blue Owl Capital
Scale: 300 MW · 150 acres · 2,050,000 sq ft · 10,000,000,000 USD
Acres and square footage are derived from the agreement (two campuses of about 75 acres; buildings of about 400,000, 650,000, and 1,000,000 sq ft). MW and cost are press figures: CoreWeave described an initial 100 MW with potential to expand to 300 MW, and LancasterOnline and WITF reported about $10 billion combined.
Verification: read from the signed document
A strong version: A fund that scales with the project, with a community seat on the body that spends it
amount: $20,000,000 · cadence: one time · scales with project: no · community seat: no
$10M to the Lancaster County Community Foundation and $10M to the City's Sustainable Development and Clean Energy Fund, paid in $2.5M installments at construction financing and within 30 days of operations start for each of the two East campus units. Secured by a $20M letter of credit or a corporate guarantee from an entity with $100M net worth (8.3). The $250,000 strategic-plan payment is credited against the $10M foundation contribution, so the total is $20M, not $20.25M as the Sabin Center summary says. No payment is written for the Harrisburg Pike (West) building. Under Section 10.2.1 no obligation attaches to a campus until its owner has all approvals and closes a construction loan; only the $250,000 is due automatically. The Community Foundation told LancasterOnline the committee's meetings will not be public.
A strong version: Incentives come back if the facility stops operating, not only if a jobs number is missed
Not applicable to this deal.
The City gave no tax incentives, so there is nothing to claw back. The closest instrument is the $10M Contingent Clean Energy Fund letter of credit: a building whose ten-year power contract is only 80 percent clean pays $2.5M (East) or $5M (West); at 60 percent it pays $5M (East) or $10M (West). Without at least a 60 percent contract the owner must run on 100 percent clean energy or face Article 9 enforcement, which is injunctive relief and specific performance. The phrase 'discontinuance of operations' appears only in the City's summary, not in the agreement.
A strong version: A bond, escrow, or letter of credit that pays for teardown and site restoration if the operator walks
instrument: covenant only
An E-Waste Management Plan is required and tenant-installed equipment must be promptly removed when a building is decommissioned, but there is no bond, escrow, or site-restoration fund.
A strong version: The operator pays for its own interconnection and carries a minimum bill that survives it leaving
Not addressed in the agreement.
interconnect paid by: operator
The agreement is silent on transmission, substation, and interconnection cost. Press reports the developer partners intend to fund about $200M of PPL Electric grid improvements, including a new substation and switchyard near Pitney Road. That commitment lives outside the CBA.
A strong version: A stated cap or closed-loop cooling, plus public reporting
cap: 20,000 gal/day · reporting: no · cooling: closed loop
Hard cap of 20,000 gallons per day of municipal water at either campus, closed-loop cooling with minimal municipal water and no added chemicals. Rainwater and gray water capture for irrigation is only 'reasonably maximize' (4.6.1). The City's summary says the prior printing plant used 100,000 to 125,000 gallons per day. The annual report to Council covers clean energy only; water use is not reported.
A strong version: A numeric limit measured at the nearest residence or property line
measured at: Property line of the nearest residential-zoned property or residence, or a location deemed essential in park (PO) districts, as existing on the Effective Date. The standard is pre-construction ambient (lowest one-hour LEQ; day and night for residential, day only for parks), not a number. · setback: 100 ft
Magnetic levitation chillers and sound-attenuated generator enclosures required. Generator testing daytime only, never Sundays or federal holidays. A noise mitigation plan certified by a professional acoustic engineer is due within 60 days of the Effective Date for the East campus and within 60 days of a tenant lease for the West campus (11.1); post-construction testing required (5.2.2). The City may demand a compliance re-check on complaint only once every two years (5.2.1). The 100-foot figure is a landscaped buffer yard along streets and residential or park edges, 50 feet elsewhere (4.1.2), not a building setback.
A strong version: Binding job commitments with a consequence, not projections
permanent: 300 · local hire: yes · prevailing wage: no · enforceable: no
The agreement says the owners expect approximately 150 people at each campus (300 total); it is an expectation, not a commitment. Local hiring is a good-faith effort with percentage goals to be set in a Local Hiring Plan; as of April 2026 the City had a draft but had not released it. No prevailing wage; only a worker-misclassification clause. Press figures range from 70 full-time at launch (CoreWeave, July 2025) to 350 permanent (LancasterOnline and the City FAQ); construction estimates range from 600 to 2,000.
Softening languageThe owners "expect" approximately 150 people at each campus, and local hiring is a "good faith" effort with percentage goals to be set later in a plan that had not been released.
A strong version: Local subcontracting goals and haul-route road repair paid by the operator
Not addressed in the agreement.
local subcontracting: no · road repair: no
No local subcontracting requirement and no haul-route or road-damage term; Section 4.6.3 only requires restoring pavements, curbs, sidewalks and other features disturbed by construction. Owners reimburse City emergency-response costs above $25,000 per response. Press reports $149M in contracts awarded with over half to local firms, which is practice, not obligation.
A strong version: No NDA, the agreement is public, and an independent audit on a schedule
agreement public: yes · dashboard: no · audit: annual · independent: no
The agreement is a public record under Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law with carve-outs for proprietary and security submissions. Owners must keep a public website and complaint portal and present a report to Council each April on clean-energy percentage and sourcing; that self-report is the only recurring accountability, and it is not audited. The only audit right written runs the other way: the owners may audit both funds annually. Residents are not third-party beneficiaries and cannot enforce the agreement. The Community Foundation told LancasterOnline the fund committee's meetings will not be public. No source addresses whether the City signed a nondisclosure agreement at any stage.
A strong version: A but-for test before any abatement, with the forgone revenue stated
Not applicable to this deal.
abatement: 0% · PILOT: no · forgone: $0
No tax breaks: the City says no incentives are offered and the project is not eligible for LERTA or CRIZ; the CBA itself is silent on taxes. No PILOT. The City received about $7.8M in building permit fees for the first building and $327,345 in realty transfer tax on the purchase.
Lancaster Stands Up reported it received a version of the agreement only two days before the council vote, and the fund committee has no direct community representative. source
Council was told the agreement was the final offer negotiated by city staff and Chirisa Technology Parks and could not be amended. source
Only the City can enforce the agreement. Residents affected by noise cannot sue under it. source
Negotiation came after the February 2025 zoning opinions and the June 2025 demolition permit (recited in Section 12.1), so the City's leverage was limited. source
The clean-energy penalty structure was described by resident Darrell Lagace as pay to pollute. source