Rowan to develop two more data center projects at Quantum Loophole campus

Rowan Digital Infrastructure has announced two new data center projects it plans to build on Quantum Loophole’s data center campus, in addition to a project for which it’s already received conditional approval from the Frederick County Planning Commission.

The company hosted an open house at Camp Shoresh in Adamstown on Wednesday to talk to residents and stakeholders about its new projects and address concerns or feedback before submitting applications to the Planning Commission later this summer.

Quantum Loophole plans to build a campus of data centers on the site of the former Alcoa Eastalco aluminum smelting plant, which is about 2,100 acres, near Adamstown.

Data centers store computing machines and server systems needed for cloud-based services.

Two companies — Rowan Digital Infrastructure and Aligned Data Centers — have announced their intent to build data center facilities on the campus.

Aligned, based in Texas, announced its plans first, but abandoned the project last fall due to not receiving an exemption from the state to build backup generators. After Gov. Wes Moore signed a bill earlier this month that gives data centers that exemption, Aligned decided to proceed again with its project.

Rowan, which is based in Colorado, aims to “provide net zero power solutions for mission-critical green data centers,” according to the Rowan Frederick Data Center project website.

The company received conditional approval from the Planning Commission in January for a 777,000-square-foot data center project, which will have four data center buildings.

Rowan’s new projects, referred to as Frederick Project II and Frederick Project III, will be 830,000 square feet and 580,000 square feet respectively, according to Martin Romo, Rowan’s senior director of economic development and policy.

Project II will have four buildings on land next to New Design Road, according to a project map rendering presented to attendees at the open house.

Project III will be smaller and have three buildings. It will be on a brownfield that the smelting plant was actually on, Romo said.

Rowan Projects locations

Rowan Digital Infrastructure plans to build three data center projects on Quantum Loophole's data center campus near Adamstown.

Brownfield sites are properties whose expansion, redevelopment or reuse may be complicated by the presence of contamination, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Romo said the company will participate in the Maryland Department of the Environment’s Voluntary Cleanup Program, in which the department’s Land Restoration Program oversees the voluntary cleanup of contaminated properties, to make sure the land for Project III is safe to build and operate on.

He said the company wanted to host an open house before submitting applications to the Planning Commission, so it can incorporate public feedback.

Rowan hosted an open house in October for its first data center project, but the company had already submitted a site plan application by the time that event was hosted.

“I was just chatting with a local neighbor that was wondering if there would be more vegetation to help with some of the screening,” Romo said at the open house on Wednesday. “It’s that type of feedback that I think will be really helpful for us to integrate in the site plan and help provide additional mitigations from the community.”

According to project fact sheets, Rowan is expecting Planning Commission hearings to be held this fall. Due to the voluntary cleanup plan for Project III, Romo said there may be a small delay in that project’s timeline compared to Project II.

Quantum Loophole spokesperson Steve Kearney did not respond to a request for comment about the new projects on Friday.

Rowan’s business model is building a “shell” of a data center that the company leases out to a hyperscale tenant.

Romo said Rowan hadn’t initially anticipated creating more facilities at Quantum Loophole’s campus — but after receiving approval from the Planning Commission for its first project and connecting more with local stakeholders, Rowan realized that “this is a great place to do business.”

“We have signals from the entire industry that they want more space — everyone’s looking for space — so we’re looking for the next site to build it,” Romo said at the open house. “Given the success of the first project, we recognized that this is a really good place to build a second and third project.”

More project details and benefits

In an emailed statement to The Frederick News-Post on Friday, Rowan Senior Director of Site Development Xiomara Gerlach said the power capacity for Projects II and III is still being evaluated by regional power provider Potomac Edison. The first project is planned as a 231-megawatt facility.

One megawatt can provide more than a month of power to the average U.S. home, according to environmental news site EcoWatch.

Rowan will pay for all costs from Potomac Edison, which provides power to more than 400,000 customers in Maryland and West Virginia, to connect its projects to the electric grid, according to the Rowan Frederick website.

Additionally, the project website says the tenant using Rowan’s facilities will ultimately decide what backup energy technology to use. If backup emergency generators are used, they will be Tier 4 emergency diesel generators.

To meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s Tier 4 standards, the engines must have advanced emission control technologies, according to the agency’s website.

Gerlach said all of Rowan’s projects will use water in their cooling systems for data center equipment.

She wrote that the systems are “designed to use and reuse water efficiently, recirculating it two or three times before discharging it in accordance with all Frederick County regulations and Adequate Public Use Facilities requirements, ensuring that existing and planned infrastructure in the County is able to support the project’s needs.”

According to a report issued by the Frederick County data center work group in March, the parcel where Rowan’s first project will be has 440,000 gallons of cooling water allocated to it by the county.

Romo said the estimated costs associated with Project II would be $800 million, and the costs for Project III would be around $500 million.

He said the Maryland Tech Council, a technology and life sciences trade association, is commissioning an economic impact study on the new projects.

The council has commissioned other economic impact studies on the Quantum Loophole campus and Rowan’s first project.

The study on the entire campus estimated it will annually generate about $41 million in county tax revenue and nearly $197 million in state tax revenue, and will employ 1,700 people in its facilities once completed.

Rowan’s first project is estimated to generate about $7 million in annual county tax revenue and employ 100 people on-site.

Romo estimated that Project II, similar in size and scope to the first project, would also employ 100 people in the facilities once the project is complete. Since Project III is smaller, he estimated there would be 75 direct employees when the facilities are operating.

Gerlach said Rowan anticipates the final study will be completed this summer.

Because Rowan’s model is to lease out facilities to hyperscale tenants, Romo said, the company doesn’t know what data the tenants will use the data centers for.

“We only partner with hyperscale operators, and they do all sorts of things. There are some that host things like financial information and host things like government documents, but there are ones that just have social media content,” he said. “It’s hard to say, and they would never share that with us.”

Community reactions, concerns

More than 70 people attended Wednesday’s open house, according to Rowan spokesperson Nathaniel Brown, including Adamstown residents, representatives from local unions and individuals who were part of Frederick County’s data center work group.

Among those who attended and were part of the data center work group were Faith Klareich, chair of the Frederick County Sustainability Commission, and Paul Walker, a retired client solutions executive and environmental advocate.

Klareich and Walker could not be reached for comment on Friday to talk about their reactions to the open house.

Several Adamstown residents, such as Helen Neely and William Jamison, had concerns about the impacts of the projects on nearby residents.

Neely said she specifically was worried about noise. She said Rowan employees assured her that they’re doing landscaping around all of their projects and have noise mitigation within the buildings.

“They’ve really thought about it, so I hope this is going to be better planned,” she said. “They seem to be thinking forward.”

Jamison said he was worried about the amount of water the projects would use to cool the facilities’ data center equipment and if the county would have to upgrade its sewage infrastructure to accommodate the campus’ water usage for cooling.

He also voiced concerns about the projects’ power demand and if the projects would have a vessel to contain diesel generators if the fuel spills.

William Yull, executive director of the National Electrical Contractors Association’s Maryland chapter, and Carmen Voso of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 24 attended to connect with Rowan’s staff about providing providing qualified electricians and electrical contractors for the projects.

“The fact that they’re [Rowan] here and committed to the county and to the state and are not going to other sites — we think it’s great,” Voso said.

Yull said he was impressed that Rowan is trying to develop its projects “the right way.”