‘You were supposed to protect us from this’: Backlash grows over Princeton Nurseries data center

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Intense backlash facing the Princeton Nurseries Data Center grew after plans for 20 diesel-fueled generators were raised at a contentious air pollution permit hearing. As a result, the public comment period for the permit has been extended until Nov. 9 — a permit which claims that the twenty generators to be placed in the data center are “minor sources” of pollution despite pushback from residents. 

The backlash follows an ongoing lawsuit in South Brunswick against the data center’s development, and several other townships in the state banning data centers completely. 

At the center of the backlash is a 341,000 square-foot data center less than a mile from University research facilities. In 2024, Princeton University sold 143 acres of its Princeton Nurseries site for nearly $22 million to WRV Nurseries South Brunswick Owner, LLC, a company that is now building the data center. The final tenant is unknown, and following the completion of the sale of the property, the University has had “no connection to it since that time,” according to a statement from University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss. 

Students, faculty, and Princeton residents are now rallying against the construction of the data center, mainly citing potential environmental concerns. Construction for the data center is on track to be completed by the end of 2026.

The timeline of the data center

The Princeton Nurseries data center sits on a historic site that formerly housed a section of the country’s largest commercial plant nursery, which at its height spanned 1,200 acres across New Jersey. In 1986, Princeton Nurseries and the Flemer Family sold a 271-acre chunk of land to the University, which remained its sole owner until the 2024 sale. The University sold the land to the developmental consortium WRV Nurseries South Brunswick Owner, LLC, and made almost $22 million from the sale. The data center is also known as the Sentinel Data Center, as the real estate company Sentinel will be developing the site. 

Sentinel did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the ‘Prince.’

This August, a case went to trial over the data center. The lawsuit against South Brunswick Township and WRV Nurseries South Brunswick Owner, LLC was filed by South Brunswick residents Mark and Katherine Smith in 2025 a year after plans for the data center were first announced in March 2024. The Smiths alleged that the process behind the data center’s plan was inconsistent with the Township’s Master Plan — a design document for the whole county used to guide the future physical, economic, and social development of South Brunswick. 

On Sept. 2, the lawsuit against the data center was ruled in favor of South Brunswick. The lawsuit is currently being appealed and has the potential to stop the construction of the data center, if successful.

On Sept. 23, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection hosted a public forum on an air pollution permit allowing the construction of 20 large diesel-fired emergency generators at the Sentinel site. The meeting did not concern approval for the project, which was already confirmed to proceed in May 2025. 

“The public has not been properly informed,” Jill Feldman, a Princeton resident, argued to the NJ DEP at the data center’s air pollution permit hearing on Sept. 23. 

“If the out-of-state corporation didn’t need permission to release particulate matter that is classified as air toxins into the air of Central New Jersey, it’s likely that we and our neighbors would never have known about the construction of this data center,” Feldman said.  

One comment came from Cyndi Shattuck, a Kingston resident, who said she developed skin cancer as a result of returning to work shortly after 9/11 under the government’s advice.  

“I’m asking for you to not use all of us as an experiment to see how much we can tolerate before there’s a class action lawsuit. You were supposed to protect us from this,” she said.

“What happened in Vineland is embarrassing, and it could easily happen here,” Mary Saudargas, a Princeton resident and a member of Food and Water Action NJ, said at the hearing. On Sept. 22, Gov. Mikie Sherrill issued a $1.07 million fine against a data center in Vineland for violating the Air Pollution Act. 

“I encourage the NJ DEP to reconsider the models that [it] used for this permit, and reclassify it as a major source of pollution,” Saudargas added.

At the Undergraduate Student Government senate meeting on Sunday, the senate passed “A Statement in Opposition to Data Center Development in South Brunswick, N.J.,” which initially scheduled the letter to be sent to the NJ DEP and Gov. Mikie Sherrill on Tuesday. The statement specifically targets the air pollution permit the site needs to install the 20 diesel-fired generators on the site. 

In addition to concerns from the University community, New Jersey residents and Princeton Municipality officials have also spoken out against the data center. “We strongly urge DEP to take every possible measure to ensure that this data center does not become an environmental blight on our region,” the Princeton Mayor and council wrote in an Oct. 1 statement. 

Students, faculty, residents speak out

Princeton Mayor Mark Freda addressed concerns about air pollution at a Princeton Council meeting hosted on Sept. 28 at a hotel near the data center, stating, “We should officially go on the record and put a comment in also being opposed to this ... Having diesel generators in today’s day and age makes absolutely no sense. They’re doing everything they can to just have the worst air possible.”

On Tuesday, David Cohen, a councilmember for the Princeton Council who is currently running for reelection to the Council, said that there was no “need for Council to take action” on the data center at a general candidate forum. “We did … consider passing an ordinance not to have data centers in Princeton” Cohen said. “Land is too expensive in Princeton anyway for anybody to want to build a data center here.” 

Ari Ahdieh ’28, who worked with the environmental non-profit Pineland Alliance over the summer, spoke at a Princeton Council meeting in July, raising concerns around the project’s water usage and waste pollution. He highlighted the Sentinel data center’s 70-megawatt electricity capacity, which he said is “equivalent to the annual household electricity consumption of Princeton, South Brunswick and Trenton combined.” 

Ahdieh is a Sports reporter-in-training for the ‘Prince.’

“Right now, Princeton has a great opportunity to get ahead of the curve and be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to something so relevant,” Ahdieh said. 

“This is really the time to consider a temporary moratorium on data centers in New Jersey and in Princeton,” he added. A one-year moratorium on data centers was introduced in July in the state of New York. 

Looking forward, Ahdieh told the ‘Prince’ that “awareness seems like a first step.”

“I think making Princeton students more aware so that when, inevitably, there are proposals for future data centers in the area … Princeton students [can] have more of an opinion so that they can mobilize and maybe go to some of these meetings.” 

The NJ DEP’s public comment period ends on Nov. 9. “The department will also issue a formal response-to-comments document, together with its final determination on the permit action under consideration,” Vincent Grassi, a public information officer for the NJ DEP, wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’ “DEP does not have a timeline for a final decision as the public comment period is still ongoing.” 

“We live here, we have rooted our families here,” Kirsten Valdez Quade, associate professor of Creative Writing and a Princeton town resident, told the ‘Prince.’ “We love this area because of the presence of preserved land, the proximity to nature, and this community, and this project threatens all of that.” 

Lucy Harper is a News and Features contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from London. 

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