Activists’ campaign appears to derail Maryland data center project

A Maryland activist, backed by members of a revolutionary communist group, appears to have helped stop a major data center project in her community. Asked what should take its place on the vacant 87-acre site, Taylor Frazier McCollum suggested an indoor amusement park with trampolines.

How it started

Landover Mall, once a 1.3-million-square-foot shopping center in Landover, Maryland, had three department stores, upscale retailers and other amenities. It closed in May 2002 and was demolished several years later, disappointing some local residents.

Owner Lerner Enterprises considered several plans for the property, including the possibility of a new FBI headquarters. But the fenced-off, overgrown site remained unused for nearly 25 years.

In 2024, Lerner announced plans for Brightseat Tech Park, a data center campus expected to begin construction in 2026 or 2027. The project was projected to involve about $5 billion in investment and use as much as 820 megawatts of power.

The company said the campus, which had county planning approval, could eventually generate $53.5 million in annual local tax revenue and $88.6 million for the state.

How it’s going

Prince George’s County may not get the project after McCollum and the Party for Socialism and Liberation campaigned against it. The group is a Marxist-Leninist organization.

McCollum launched a petition in June 2025 calling on Lerner and the county to stop the plans and give Landover residents a meaningful chance to weigh in. It gathered more than 25,600 signatures and was followed by protests.

The petition argued that the data center could change the neighborhood’s appearance and bring environmental and economic consequences residents had not been consulted about.

McCollum said she objected to the prospect of data centers using water and diesel generators near homes, workplaces and recreational areas.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation supported the campaign and portrayed the dispute in racial terms. The group has also argued that, under capitalism, artificial intelligence and data centers can become tools of exploitation and profit-seeking. Critics have pointed to the group’s past defense of Hamas.

County Executive Aisha Braveboy, who took office the same month the petition began, temporarily paused data center development through an executive order in September 2025.

In July 2026, the county council approved a two-year pause on new hyperscale data centers. That measure did not cover Brightseat Tech Park, which had already received key approvals. But the council passed a separate measure last month requiring the project to undergo another council review. Council Member Shayla Adams-Stafford said the move would effectively end the project.

McCollum suggested the site could instead host an attraction like Urban Air or American Dream. She said the county had recently lost Six Flags and argued that an entertainment complex could serve a wider range of residents than a data center, whose benefits might mainly go to people who could find work there.

Urban Air operates indoor amusement and trampoline parks. American Dream is a shopping and entertainment complex in New Jersey.

New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino mocked the proposal, joking that it amounted to a “trampoline park economy.”

Jeremy Horpedahl, an economics professor at the University of Central Arkansas, pointed out that an Urban Air trampoline park is already located one Beltway exit away.