STAR Campus Data Center & Cogeneration Plant (The Data Centers, LLC)

Timeline from the record

Newest first. Record entries come from the filings and reports the registry cites. Coverage entries are headlines from publisher feeds we monitor daily, linked to the outlet; last checked September 14, 2026.

1. July 2014

   Cancelled
   University of Delaware terminated its lease agreement with The Data Centers, LLC (TDC) on 2014-07-10. Source: University of Delaware (UDaily)

Opposition and litigation at this site

Yes. Organized local opposition to STAR Campus Data Center & Cogeneration Plant (The Data Centers, LLC) in Newark, New Castle County, Delaware is documented in the public record, without a lawsuit on file in the sources we track. A UD faculty/administrator review group and Newark-area residents raised sustained concerns on environmental-impact and campus-mission grounds; UD's review concluded the 279 MW plant was unprecedented in scale for a US data center, could not be environmentally assessed absent a comparable precedent, and that TDC had shifted emphasis toward wholesale power sales rather than the university's science/tech mission.

How the community has taken it

Reception is a sourced signal, not an editorial judgment: opposed means documented, organized local opposition is the dominant signal on record.

A UD faculty/administrator review group and Newark-area residents raised sustained concerns on environmental-impact and campus-mission grounds; UD's review concluded the 279 MW plant was unprecedented in scale for a US data center, could not be environmentally assessed absent a comparable precedent, and that TDC had shifted emphasis toward wholesale power sales rather than the university's science/tech mission. UD terminated the lease as a result.

Source: University of Delaware (UDaily)

Power and water

Proposed 279 MW natural-gas cogeneration (CHP) plant to power the data center on-site. UD's review found this would have been at least twice the size of any other known on-site generation facility at a US data center. Never built.

Notes on the record

Proposed circa 2013 by The Data Centers, LLC (TDC): up to 900,000 sq ft of data center space plus the 279 MW cogeneration plant noted above, on the University of Delaware's 271-acre STAR Campus (former Chrysler Newark Assembly Plant site). Sources disagree on the headline investment figure, Data Center Knowledge reported 'approximately $1 billion' while Technical.ly reported 'more than $1.8 billion' for the combined data-center-and-power-plant project; both are recorded here rather than resolving to one number, so investmentUsd is left unset. Coordinates are the 'STAR Campus' OSM way centroid (approximate), the specific parcel within the 271-acre campus where this project would have sited was not stated in any source reviewed, and the project was never built.

Other sites within 30 miles

Distances are between recorded coordinates, many of which are a city or county centroid, so treat them as approximate. Cumulative load on one utility and one aquifer is the question a planning commission rarely asks.

• White Clay Corporate Center Data Center Redevelopment · Newark · Shelbourne1 mi · Proposed · Contested
• St. Georges Business Park & Lighthouse Farms · St. Georges · Parkway Gravel Inc.9 mi · Proposed · 300 MW · Contested
• Project Washington (Starwood Digital Ventures) · Delaware City · Starwood Digital Ventures10 mi · Proposed · 1.2 GW · In litigation
• Sentinel East Whiteland Data Center · East Whiteland Township · Sentinel Data Centers28 mi · Under construction · 300 MW · In litigation

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