Ex-rental broker Igal Feibush's $15B bet on Pennsylvania AI data centers

How a Pennsylvania Horse Farm Became a $15 Billion Data Center Bet

Dust hangs over a 700-acre former horse farm outside Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where construction crews are grading bedrock to build one of the largest proposed data center campuses in the state. The project, known as PAX-1, is part of a nationwide race to build computing capacity for artificial intelligence — a wave that McKinsey estimates will require roughly $7 trillion in global capital investment by 2030.

The developer behind the project is Igal Feibush, a New York real estate entrepreneur best known for co-founding the Manhattan rental brokerage Citi Habitats. Feibush met the property's longtime owner, former Bear Stearns banker Fred Kayne, about a decade ago. The land had already survived several failed plans — a horse farm, then a 1,000-home development that collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis. What made it valuable for data centers was the infrastructure crossing the site: high-voltage transmission lines and local power company upgrade plans.

In 2025, Feibush arranged the sale of the land to a joint venture for a reported $30 million, then rolled his proceeds into a new company, Pennsylvania Data Center Partners, taking an equity stake alongside Virginia-based PowerHouse Data Centers. The joint venture's plans are enormous: an 18-building hyperscale campus with 1.35 gigawatts of initial capacity, expandable to 1.8 gigawatts, at an estimated cost of $15 billion. Early in 2026 the project cleared a key hurdle with water and sewer agreements in Middlesex Township, and site work has begun, with the first 450 megawatts targeted for delivery by the end of 2027.

Feibush says the campus has signed a lease with an unnamed hyperscaler for the entire site. The project would generate an estimated $65 million a year in property taxes, mostly for local schools. But it has also become a flashpoint, with a residents' group challenging the township's spot rezoning in court and a state senator proposing a three-year pause on new hyperscale data center siting.

What Feibush's Pivot Reveals About the AI Data Center Land Rush

Why Carlisle Made Sense

The location checks the three boxes that define a viable data center site: land, power and approvals. The 700-acre tract sits along Interstate 81, is crossed by high-voltage transmission lines, and lies in a state with surplus electricity and proximity to East Coast population centers — the combination that has made Pennsylvania one of the country's hottest data center markets. Feibush's original plan was an industrial park; the transmission infrastructure redirected it toward a much bigger prize.

A New Breed of Speculative Developer

PAX-1 reflects the structure of the current boom. A newcomer identified the site, secured power and zoning, brought an established operator — Virginia-based PowerHouse Data Centers — and a private lender into the capital stack, and looks set to sell or lease the finished asset to a hyperscaler. That model has produced enormous paper fortunes, but the entry window may be tightening. Communities are growing skeptical, and neighboring New York has already moved toward moratoria. Feibush's timing, starting on the site roughly a decade ago and securing approvals before the backlash hardened, looks fortunate.

The Backlash Is Already Here

The opposition is concrete, not abstract: 'No to Data Centers' yard signs, a court challenge from Stewards of Cumberland County over spot rezoning, and questions about water use, noise, traffic and blasting. A proposed three-year state pause on hyperscale siting would freeze new projects if it passes, making already-approved sites like PAX-1 more valuable — and raising the stakes for communities weighing tax revenue against local disruption.

A Boom Pattern That Has Busted Before

Columbia Business School professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh's new paper warns that past infrastructure waves — notably 19th-century railroads — created enormous wealth before collapsing when speculation outran demand. The risk here is structural: if AI demand cools, power constraints persist, or computing advances make today's facilities obsolete faster than expected, the fallout would hit developers, lenders and investors far beyond Silicon Valley. For PAX-1 specifically, the key unknown is the lease: the tenant and terms are undisclosed, so the supposed de-risking cannot yet be verified.

What Developers, Communities and Investors Should Watch Next

For developers:

• Follow the Feibush checklist for site selection: existing high-voltage transmission access, utility upgrade plans, and local government willingness to approve — the three factors that turned a failed housing tract into a data center campus.
• Expect community engagement to be the critical path. Feibush spent months on town halls and site tours before clearing water and sewer agreements with Middlesex Township in early 2026.
• Watch the Pennsylvania state senate: a proposed three-year pause on hyperscale siting would cap the entry window for speculative projects now in permitting.

For communities and investors:

• Communities weighing similar projects should benchmark against PAX-1's disclosed terms: roughly $65 million a year in property taxes versus documented concerns over water use, noise and blasting.
• Investors should treat the project's risk as concentrated in a single undisclosed hyperscaler lease; the first verifiable milestone is delivery of 450 megawatts by the end of 2027.
• The site's reported 2025 sale price of $30 million will likely serve as a comparable in farmland-to-data-center deals, so verify the final terms before using it as a proxy.