Invest2 publishers3 min readPublished
NorthPoint's $10,000 checks for Hazle Township hinge on finishing a data center building, as regulators pause a related power line
NorthPoint Development offered Hazle Township households $10,000 apiece to back its $165 million Project Hazelnut, paid only after the first building is done. The deferral means the cash costs NorthPoint nothing unless a contested power line to the campus gets built.
The Investor · Invest desk
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What happened
- Hazle Township residents largely rejected the cash offer, which The Wall Street Journal was first to report.
- PPL Electric Utilities' proposed 11.2-mile line to the campus puts 28 properties under eminent domain threat, including Sugarloaf Township resident Erika Cook's.
- Amazon told Fortune it is evaluating multiple Pennsylvania sites and has no definitive agreement with NorthPoint.
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Why it matters
- cost Households are asked to give up their leverage now for a payment that moves further out with every month the court case and line proceedings add.
- constraint The commission's ruling makes power wait on local approval, so NorthPoint cannot secure electricity for the campus while it is still fighting for permission to build it.
- exposure With no definitive agreement and Amazon weighing other Pennsylvania sites, NorthPoint holds the tenant risk on a 1,300-acre campus throughout the approval fight.
- precedent Garman's pledge to stop signing NDAs with government agencies would mean Amazon is named from the start on future campuses, removing the secrecy complaint that sent Hazle residents to records requests.
If every one of Hazle Township's 4,500 properties held an eligible household, the checks would total $45 million [1], about 27% of the $165 million NorthPoint offered the area [2]. The figure is a ceiling. The letter limits the money to "eligible households," and Fortune's account does not say how many qualify [3].
Several approvals stand between the campus and the first finished building that triggers payment [4]. PPL Electric Utilities proposed an 11.2-mile high-voltage line through homes to supply the campus [14]. Last month the Public Utilities Commission's administrative law judges temporarily halted the line proceedings. They found it too early to grant utility extensions while the developments were unapproved and still contested in court [16]. A household asked to consent now would be paid at the far end of that sequence: the court fight first, then the line, then a finished building [4].
Erika Cook lives in Sugarloaf Township, next door to Hazle Township, and owns one of 28 properties facing eminent domain threats from PPL over the line [13]. The Alliance to Stop the Line, a group started by neighbors, has lodged roughly 20 formal protests with the commission [15]. The $10,000 letter went to Hazle Township residents [2].
Amazon's name appears nowhere in Hazelnut or NorthPoint branding, and local officials and NorthPoint both refused to confirm who the end-user would be [6]. Residents' right-to-know requests produced records in January between Amazon and Pennsylvania's Department of Community and Economic Development that confirmed its role [7]. In those emails, state officials tried to disclose Amazon's involvement while Amazon wanted it kept covert, citing "contractual issues" [8]. "We really had no idea what was happening," Cook told Fortune [11]. "We've been trying to get information, and unfortunately, the only way we've been able to get it is by right-to-know requests," she said [12]. An Amazon spokesperson told Fortune the company is "evaluating multiple sites across the Commonwealth" and has no definitive agreement with NorthPoint [9]. NorthPoint did not respond to Fortune [19].
Residents say the secrecy frustrated them [20], but the commission's stated grounds for the pause were approval and litigation [16]. The record supports opposition as a cause of delay; it does not show the hidden tenant added time by itself. On Friday, AWS chief executive Matt Garman said in a blog post that the company will no longer enter nondisclosure agreements with government agencies on data center projects [10].
Hazelnut is one fight among many. Data Center Watch counted at least 75 projects worth more than $130 billion delayed or cancelled in the first three months of 2026 [17], roughly $1.7 billion apiece at those floor figures [4]. Opposition groups across 49 states went from 396 at the end of last year to 833 by March [18], slightly more than double [3].
The project can go three ways from here. The township approves, the court clears, the commission resumes and NorthPoint pays on a finished building [4]. Amazon picks one of the other Pennsylvania sites it says it is weighing [9], and Hazelnut loses its intended user. Or the litigation and the line proceedings run long enough that the timeline slips whoever the tenant turns out to be [16]. I think the deferred check was cheap for NorthPoint to offer and easy for residents to refuse, because it pays out only in the outcome its opponents are fighting to stop [4][5]. That view is wrong if the commission restarts soon after a township approval and the line advances past the roughly 20 protests [15]. In that case the cash bought consent, and the opposition cost NorthPoint only time.
What to watch
- Whether PUC administrative law judges restart the PPL line proceedings once the Hazelnut development clears approval and its court challenge.
- Whether Amazon signs a definitive agreement with NorthPoint or picks one of the other Pennsylvania sites it says it is evaluating.
- Whether the next Pennsylvania data center filings name Amazon as tenant from the start, as Garman's NDA pledge implies.