Planners approve additional data center buildings, with acoustic conditions

Yahoo

20-05-2025

The Frederick County Planning Commission has approved the site plan for three more buildings on the Aligned Data Centers project, with limits on noise.
The Aligned Critical Digital Infrastructure Facility features four buildings and an energy transformer yard on 74.89 acres near Adamstown.
The Frederick County Planning Commission approved the first data center building in May 2023 and the transformer substation in March 2025, according to county records.
Building 1 will occupy the southern-most location on the site, followed in order by Buildings 2, 3 and 4 heading north, according to county records.
Buildings 2, 3 and 4 total 1.15-million square feet.
The commission approved the submitted plan unanimously on Wednesday with the following additions: a 22-foot-tall concrete wall enclosing Building 3, as well as along the east sides of the generator yards for Buildings 2 and 4.
Sound concerns
The data centers are 24-hour-a-day operations, requiring significant infrastructure to cool machines and have backup power available.
Jessica Baker, technical program manager for Aligned, said generators for the site planned for a worst-case scenario — total power loss — an outcome that has been 'very few and far between' at other locations.
'Most of our sites, we very rarely see the generators run outside of monthly testing,' Baker said.
Emily Piersol — an acoustics consultant with Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon, and Williams, an international design and consulting firm with corporate offices based in Carrollton, Texas — said the acoustic report her team performed considered 84 rooftop chillers per building for Buildings 1, 2 and 3 and 56 rooftop chillers for Building 4.
Baker said it is standard for Aligned to have chillers on the roof and generators at the ground level.
The plan was for 164 generators on site between the four buildings, according to Piersol.
She said her team analyzed the three step-down transformers within the transformer yard portion of the substation, as well.
Planning Commissioner Carole Sepe said she remembered screening required for acoustics from the Building 1 plans, but saw no concrete panels in the drawings for the three additional buildings.
'Where's the concrete panel screening?' she asked.
She said the plans as she read them included mainly chain-link fence or perforated screens, with concrete only included in one partially screened section.
'All the generators should be closed, not with just a metal fence,' Sepe said. 'The only thing that should be open is just the access to it.'
Sepe said she was not concerned about the buildings, but about the fenced generator yards.
Baker said she agreed with Sepe's concerns about how the concrete walls were not clear enough in the presented plans.
Piersol said her model factored in a concrete screening wall south of Building 1; a chain-link fence between Buildings 1 and 2; visual screening by the loading docks; and visual screening with 'acoustical properties' north of Building 4.
She said that noise is measured not at the property boundary, but at the nearest agricultural property near the intersection of Ballenger Creek Pike and Manor Woods Road.
Piersol said the analysis found the sound levels on the east and west sides of Building 2 would be 70 A-weighted decibels — the limit for industrial uses — and thus did not require sound screening.
She said the study considered a 22-foot concrete screening wall around the generator yard by Building 3, between the building and transformers.
Piersol said the noise by the generator yard at Building 4 was less than 70 dBA and thus did not require screening walls.
She said the difference came down to the fact that the physical building screens the noise from the generators at Building 4, but not Building 3.
Additionally, Baker said the walls along the east could be designed to have aesthetic qualities in addition to sound-dampening ones.
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
Access to the site will come from Manor Woods Road until Quantum Place South is opened to traffic, with the goal of being able to build each building in phases through the secure access point to the site, according to the records.
The plan called for 226 parking spaces, when only 90 were required by code, according to county records.
Part of that offsets the proposed six large loading spaces when 115 were required. This was due to the expectation that there will be less pedestrian movement because it's a secure facility, according to the records.
Baker said this parking arrangement better served shift changes for workers of a 24-hour-a-day facility.
Additionally, the plan calls for 10 bike racks and 20 total spaces, meeting county standard. The racks will be uncovered, according to Graham Hubbard, a planner for the county.
Baker said she was open to discussing bike rack protections, to encourage alternative commutes to the site.
Hubbard said the lighting plan for the three additional buildings would be the same as the previously approved for Building 1.
Graham Cannady, project manager for Corgan, a Dallas, Texas based architectural firm, said his firm was not the original architect of the project but would gladly incorporate rooftop screening to ensure continuity throughout the project.
'Same thing goes with the yard screening,' he said. 'If that is required, we will gladly add the additional screening if necessary in lieu of chain-link.'
Following a question from Planning Commisioner Sam Tressler III, Baker said it would be possible to finish all four buildings by 2028.
'Market conditions and customer demand drive what that ends up looking like,' she said.
Baker said Aligned already has an end user lined up for Building 1.