Westfield Planning Board denies special permit extension for Servistar data center
The Westfield Planning Board unanimously denied Servistar Realties LLC’s request for a three-year extension of its special permit for a proposed $2.5 billion data center campus. Board members said the developer had not shown good cause for delays, noting that little construction or permitting progress had occurred since the permit was issued in 2021.
The Westfield Planning Board unanimously rejected Servistar Realties LLC’s request to extend its special permit for the proposed Westfield Data Center. The permit expires Oct. 19, and the board concluded that Servistar had not demonstrated good cause for a three-year extension. Board members cited the lack of land purchases, environmental filings, deed registration and visible progress toward the project’s first phase.
Servistar representative Paul Corey said the planned campus could eventually include 10 buildings, 2.74 million square feet of space, thousands of direct, indirect and construction jobs, and significant tax revenue. He attributed delays to the timing of Massachusetts data center tax legislation, energy-market uncertainty, grid interconnection issues and local and state pauses on new data center development. Corey said the company had a major prospective investor and was prepared to pursue environmental and interconnection approvals, but the board voted unanimously to deny the extension.