Infrastructure and Industrial Opportunities: Pennsylvania’s Next Development Cycle

As the information age evolves, e-commerce grows and the United States renews its focus on industry and manufacturing, Pennsylvania is attracting renewed interest from companies and developers seeking land, infrastructure and market access in one location. The strongest activity is coming from uses that are often grouped together but place very different demands on a site, including data centres, distribution and logistics, pharmaceutical and life sciences manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, and, in some markets, transit-oriented or walkable development and redevelopment.

These uses are not interchangeable. A warehouse project turns on addressing highway access, truck circulation, labour, grading, stormwater and traffic. A data centre starts with power, redundancy, fibre and cooling. Pharmaceutical and advanced manufacturing users may focus first on water, wastewater, process utilities, environmental controls and workforce training. Mixed-use or transit-oriented development raises different questions about planning, housing demand, parking, transit access and walkability.

Pennsylvania remains intensely competitive because of the availability of these inputs. The Commonwealth sits between the Midwest and the Northeast Corridor, with highway, port and rail networks that support distribution and manufacturing. For data centres and other power-sensitive uses, generation capacity, transmission access and fibre routes keep Pennsylvania in the conversation. For life sciences and advanced manufacturing, older industrial sites, water resources, universities, community colleges and technical training programmes give several regions a strong workforce and infrastructure base.

The advantage is not that every site is shovel ready, but rather that, in many places, land, power, water, transportation, workforce, connectivity and approvals can be assembled into a workable project.

The Site-Selection Question Now Supplemented

The old threshold questions do still matter. Buyers care about acreage, price, location, zoning, taxes and incentives. Those issues now sit beside a more practical one: can this site support this use on the required timeline?

The answer depends primarily on the particular use. For logistics, the early issues may be access, off-site road improvements, truck circulation, grading, stormwater and municipal fatigue with warehouse development. For a data centre, the deal may hinge on available electric service, required upgrades, utility study timing, cooling, water, backup power and, increasingly, community acceptance. For pharmaceutical or advanced manufacturing, diligence may turn on water supply, wastewater treatment, discharge limits, process utilities, clean manufacturing space, environmental controls and workforce training. For redevelopment, the focus may be title, easements, legacy contamination, parking, housing demand, public infrastructure and local planning goals.

Early sequencing can determine whether a project advances. A developer may need utility input before finalising site control. A lender may want comfort on permits and service commitments before closing. A municipality needs to understand the impacts on traffic, water, stormwater and emergency services before hearings and public meetings begin. Long-lead equipment, utility upgrades, highway occupancy permits and land development approvals each move on their own schedule.

Pennsylvania’s local approval structure adds another layer. Land use is municipally regulated, so a project of regional importance will depend on the ordinance, hearing schedule and political climate of one township, borough or city. A use that fits one municipality may face different definitions, conditions or community expectations in the next. That local variation is not a reason to avoid Pennsylvania, but it is a reason to do the municipal outreach early.

The best site is not always the cheapest or the largest; it is the site where the team can identify constraints, price the improvements, allocate risk and secure approvals without losing the business case. A property that looks ordinary on a map may be more valuable than a larger tract if it offers a clearer path to power, water, access, zoning and construction. Conversely, acreage and location can lose value quickly if the infrastructure answer is uncertain.

Use-specific infrastructure planning is now part of the deal’s front end. It affects site control, purchase agreements, financing, incentives, construction scheduling and the public process. The projects that move are likely to be the ones that ask the harder questions before the commitment to a location is adversely impacted by economic constraints.

Large Loads, Power and Project Risk

For large-load projects, power diligence is no longer a macro conversation about whether Pennsylvania produces enough electricity. It is a micro, site-specific inquiry: which utility serves the property, what load can be served, what upgrades are required, how long the studies will take and what commitments the customer must make before service is available.

That matters most for data centres, but it is not limited to them. Advanced manufacturing, cold storage, heavy industrial users and some life sciences projects can also create electric loads that affect site economics. The business issue is not only whether power can be delivered, but also who pays for the infrastructure, who bears the delay risk, what is the impact on other rate payers if the project goes forward and what happens if the project is reduced, delayed or abandoned after the utility has begun planning around it.

PJM Interconnection (PJM) co-ordinates the movement of electricity through all or parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, nine other states and the District of Columbia. Its long-term forecast underscores the essential nature of power allocation, with its 2026 forecast projecting that summer peak demand in the PJM footprint could rise by roughly 85,000 MW over 15 years, to more than 241,000 MW. PJM has also been reviewing large-load requests more closely, in part to separate credible projects from duplicative or speculative load estimates. The demand is real, but not every announced data centre or large-load project will be built.

The regional supply question remains unresolved. PJM has warned that this region could fall short of required reserves beginning in 2027 if demand grows faster than new generation, transmission, demand response and other resources can be brought online. There is disagreement over timing and severity, but the issue is now part of development planning. For very large users, the power strategy may need to include on-site or nearby generation, power purchase agreements, storage, curtailment rights or demand-response commitments.

Pennsylvania’s Public Utility Commission (PUC) has moved into this discussion through its large-load model tariff framework. The framework generally applies to customers above 50 MW individually or 100 MW in the aggregate. It addresses cost responsibility, financial security, study timing, contract terms, exit provisions, queue transparency and self-construction options. The PUC’s role differs from PJM’s role in regional reliability and interconnection, but both will now determine whether a large-load project in Pennsylvania can be financed and built.

For developers and users, the practical answer is to treat power as a critical, even gateway, deal term rather than a utility follow-up. Service commitments, upgrade costs, deposits, minimum-load obligations, termination rights and construction sequencing should be addressed while the project still has leverage and optionality. Waiting until after site control is locked down can mean the project has to negotiate around constraints it should have discovered and priced earlier.

Water, Wastewater and Stormwater

Water and wastewater deserve the same early attention. For pharmaceutical manufacturing, food and beverage, healthcare, advanced manufacturing and some data centre cooling strategies, capacity can be as important as electric service. A site may need an authority commitment, a private system, pretreatment, discharge approvals, line extensions or plant upgrades before it can operate as planned.

These issues can quickly become community issues. A municipality or authority may support economic development but still worry about system capacity, ratepayer impacts, treatment obligations and the timing of public improvements. A project that will draw heavily from local water or wastewater infrastructure needs a clear story about demand, discharge, funding, long-term operations and mitigation.

Addressing stormwater is an underappreciated constraint. It affects the development of warehouses, data centres, manufacturing, solar, mixed-use redevelopment and ordinary commercial projects. In Pennsylvania, it often sits at the centre of municipal and county land development review, state permitting, site engineering and neighbourhood concern. Stormwater can affect usable areas, grading costs, building and parking layout, and the approval schedule.

Public investment reflects both the need and the opportunity related to water use. In 2025, PENNVEST announced a USD547.1 million funding round for drinking water, wastewater, stormwater and non-point source projects across Pennsylvania.

That investment helps to modernise systems, but it does not replace project-level diligence. A developer still has to know whether the specific authority, plant, pipe, pump station or receiving stream can support the project in question.

Solar as the Cautionary Example

Solar remains part of Pennsylvania’s energy and land use picture, but it is no longer the straightforward growth story it might have appeared to be in some markets. Utility-scale solar still has demand, particularly as large users and public entities look for renewable power options. At the same time, many projects now face a harder path through local zoning, agricultural land concerns, interconnection limits, decommissioning obligations and public opposition.

That does not make solar irrelevant or a mistake, but it does make it a cautionary tale. A use can be favoured by market demand and still slow down when municipal ordinances, local planning goals and public expectations have not caught up. Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection recognises the role of local governments in solar siting, including zoning and land use review for grid-scale projects. Similar local questions are now appearing around battery storage, data centres, substations, transmission lines and other infrastructure-heavy uses.

The lesson is simple: public need does not eliminate local review. A project that looks compelling at the state, regional or utility level may still have to answer municipal-level questions about traffic, farmland protection, noise, viewshed, emergency services, stormwater and future land use. The best projects anticipate that tension instead of treating it as a late-stage communications problem.

Pennsylvania’s Local Approval Layer

Pennsylvania’s land use structure is one of this market’s defining features, particularly for developers more familiar with county-led approval systems. Maryland offers a useful East Coast comparison. It has about 6.3 million residents and 24 primary local jurisdictions: 23 counties and Baltimore City. Pennsylvania has about 13.1 million residents, but land use approval often drops below the county level to one of 2,560 municipal corporations. Roughly 1,603 of those municipalities have adopted their own zoning ordinances. Another 137 are covered by county zoning, and 821 have no zoning at all. The result is a far more localised approval map.

County review still matters in Pennsylvania, but it usually does not replace municipal review. Municipal zoning takes precedence over county zoning, and a municipality can displace county zoning by adopting its own ordinance. The same local-first pattern often appears in subdivision and land development reviews. Even where there is no zoning, a project may still need subdivision and land development approval, stormwater review, sewage planning, highway access approvals, environmental permits, building code review and utility co-ordination. “No zoning” can mean no zoning district or conditional use process; it does not mean no land use hurdles.

There can be real variation from one municipality to the next. A use permitted by right in one place may require conditional use approval, a special exception, a variance or a zoning text amendment elsewhere. Definitions matter, too. A local ordinance may not clearly account for a data centre, battery storage facility, fulfilment centre, life sciences manufacturing use or accessory generation facility. When that happens, the approval process can become the place where the use is effectively defined.

Traffic is often the flashpoint. Municipal officials and residents may want road improvements that address regional traffic patterns, not just traffic from a single project. But the approval process does not always allow every desired improvement to be imposed on a developer. Some work requires PennDOT involvement; some depends on the municipality’s subdivision and land development ordinance; and some must be negotiated rather than required. That distinction should be clear before the first public meeting.

Early municipal work matters. The project team should understand the comprehensive plan, zoning ordinance, subdivision and land development ordinance, the hearing process, the risk of appeals and likely community concerns before committing deeply to a site. In Pennsylvania, local approvals are not a box to check after the business terms are settled: they are part of the business terms.

The Lehigh Valley as a Regional Example

The Lehigh Valley shows how the pieces can come together. The region has long benefited from its location between New York and Philadelphia, its highway and rail network, its industrial base and its labour pool. Those advantages still matter. They are now being paired with life sciences, manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, higher education, downtown reinvestment and redevelopment.

Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC) reported that the Lehigh Valley economy reached USD57.3 billion in 2025, and that the region ranked as the No 1 mid-sized US market for new economic development projects. Those figures do not make the region immune to land constraints, traffic concerns or public resistance, but they do show why site selectors keep returning to places where transportation, utilities, workforce and approvals can be assembled with some confidence.

A prime example is a recent project in which Fitzpatrick Lentz & Bubba, is working with Eli Lilly to develop a pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in Lehigh County. Public statements from the company and the Commonwealth describe a planned USD3.5 billion investment, at least 850 permanent jobs and approximately 2,000 construction jobs. The important point is not only the size of the investment: it is the mix of factors behind the site decision, including industrial land, access, utilities, incentives, workforce development and a co-ordinated approval path.

Other regions of Pennsylvania will tell the story differently. Some will compete through energy and land; others through universities, medical systems, ports, rail, legacy industrial sites or downtown redevelopment. The common thread is not that every region has the same assets; it is that the most competitive regions can match the right assets to the right use and move the project through approvals without losing the schedule.

Project Delivery: Where the Business and Legal Work Meet

These projects do not move through one legal lane. A single development may involve real estate, land use, energy, environmental, tax, finance, construction, utility, incentives and eminent domain issues simultaneously. Treating those as separate workstreams can create gaps in timing and risk allocation.

The better approach is to organise the work around the project’s actual sequence. Before site control, the team should know whether the use is allowed, whether utilities can serve it and whether access is feasible. Before closing, the team should understand easements, title, environmental conditions, public approvals and financing conditions. Before construction, the team should have a realistic path through permits, utility commitments, procurement and public improvements.

The questions worth answering early are practical ones.

• Can the project obtain the utilities and access it needs, including power, gas, water, wastewater, broadband, roads and rail, where relevant?
• Does the zoning ordinance support the use, and what approvals or ordinance changes are required?
• What off-site improvements, easements, right-of-way or utility upgrades are needed, and who will pay for and obtain them?
• Is there a viable workforce, including training support through universities, community colleges, career and technical schools or employer-funded programmes?
• What stormwater, environmental, title, mineral, access or legacy-site issues could affect design or timing?
• Are incentives available, and do they impose investment, job, reporting, infrastructure or community benefit obligations?
• What opposition, appeals, neighbour claims or operating issues are foreseeable?

Those are legal questions, but they are also business questions. They determine whether the project can be financed, approved, built and operated without the schedule or cost structure breaking down.

Outlook

The next year is likely to be a period of filtering. Developers and users will continue to pursue sites, but more attention will shift to utility capacity, water and wastewater, transportation access, zoning, municipal appetite and the approval path. For data centres and other large loads, power availability and utility study timing will remain gating factors. For logistics and industrial projects, traffic, land supply, stormwater and community reaction will continue to separate workable sites from difficult ones.

Over the next few years, more announced projects will either enter visible development or fall away. The projects that move forward will become visible in the form of substations, utility upgrades, water and wastewater improvements, road work, fibre extensions, redevelopment activity, generation and storage projects, and public hearings. The projects that stall will often do so because a utility study took too long, a road improvement became too expensive, a zoning appeal changed the schedule, financing tightened, or local opposition made the business case harder to defend.

Pennsylvania should be well positioned in this cycle, but the opportunity is not automatic. The Commonwealth has location, energy, water, industrial history, transportation, workforce and redevelopment capacity. It also has aging infrastructure, local land use variation, power delivery constraints, warehouse fatigue in some communities, water and stormwater pressure, and a public approval process that can become contested.

The projects that succeed will be the ones that do the hard work early. They will match the use to the site, test the infrastructure, understand the local ordinance, price the improvements, secure the necessary rights and build a credible public record. In this market, Pennsylvania’s advantage is not just its assets: it is that, in the right places, those assets can still be assembled into a project that works.