Pennsylvania farmer Mervin Raudabaugh has rejected a $15.7 million offer from data center developers, choosing instead to place 261 acres of farmland under a permanent conservation restriction. The decision means the adjoining farms in Silver Spring Township, Cumberland County, cannot be redeveloped for commercial, industrial or residential projects, even after they change hands.
Raudabaugh, 86, retained ownership of the land and received just under $1.9 million through a local farmland-preservation program in exchange for permanently giving up its development rights. The developers' proposal worked out to roughly $60,000 per acre, more than eight times the conservation payment.
The two farms sit near Interstate 81, an area where large, infrastructure-connected parcels can be attractive for data center construction. Raudabaugh said he had been working toward conserving the property for years before developers began pressing to acquire it, viewing the land as a farm that should remain available to a future farming family.
The preservation mechanism was not created specifically for Raudabaugh. Silver Spring Township residents approved the use of part of the local earned-income tax in 2013 to protect farmland, forests and open space. The properties were preserved through Lancaster Farmland Trust, and the restriction remains tied to the land regardless of any future sale or inheritance.
The case highlights a growing tension around AI-era infrastructure: data center operators can buy computing hardware, but large sites with transport access and suitable supporting infrastructure are far harder to replicate. In this instance, the 261 acres have been removed from that development pool permanently.
