A 40-megawatt, two-story data center near the Bell Works property in Holmdel was proposed to the Holmdel Planning board in July of 2026.
The proposed facility would be roughly 108,000-square-feet and would replace an existing structure on the Bell Works Campus. The campus is currently a community hub that includes office, retail, restaurant, and entertainment space, and even hosts regular farmers markets, workout classes, and children’s music concerts. This is an important civic center to the neighborhood, not the appropriate location for an industrial data center.
In August of 2026, the Township of Holmdel passed an ordinance that would have established data centers as a prohibited use, However, because this proposal was submitted in July prior to the final adoption of the ban, the developer has a loophole to push the facility through.
Residents strongly oppose this data center due to environmental, energy affordability, water consumption, air quality, noise, and heat concerns. The facility would be located just 91 feet from a residential area, The Reserve development off Roberts Road, and in close proximity to a nearby c-1 stream that feeds the Swimming River Reservoir, a source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of Monmouth County residents.
The data center is expected to tap into the local grid that currently supplies Bell Works with electricity, further straining the grid by demanding energy we don’t have, and impacting reliability as a result. Additionally, backup diesel generations, the most detrimental power generation for climate, will contribute to worsening air quality by emitting toxic pollutants that negatively impact public health.
Sierra Club strongly believes that this project should be denied because there is no reasonable buffer between the data center and the community to prevent noise and heat impacts. It remains unclear how water will be utilized and what the impacts are to nearby sensitive water bodies and swimming river reservoirs. Additionally, there is no public application for clean energy to power the facility, which could lead to further air pollution in the region.
Take action to tell the Planning Board to defend the Holmdel, protect Bell Works as a safe community space, and deny the data center proposal!
