May 20, 2025

NIAGARA FALLS REDEVELOPMENT (NFR) FILES NEW PETITION FOR PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD), AS WELL AS A REQUEST FOR AN AMENDMENT TO THE CITY’S 2022 HIGH ENERGY USE ZONING LAW (HEUL)

• New PUD Petition filed with the City of Niagara Falls Planning Board resolves all issues regarding completeness raised by City’s outside counsel in response to NFR’s October 2024, 500-page PUD submission
• Proposed amendment to Niagara Falls’ zoning would resolve city-wide issues related the 2022 High Energy Use Law (HEUL).

Niagara Falls, NY (May 20, 2025)—Niagara Falls Redevelopment (NFR) today announced that it has filed two new documents with the City of Niagara Falls Planning Board in furtherance of its efforts to develop the $1.48 billion Data Center at Niagara Digital Campus project planned for approximately 53 acres in downtown Niagara Falls.

Related: Read the Fact Sheet, here.

NFR has partnered on the project with Urbacon Data Centre Solutions, a Toronto-based developer of state-of-the art data centers. Among its accomplishments, Urbacon has developed award-winning data centers in other high-density, urban locations, including in Toronto and Montreal.

The new filings were made to the City Planning Board on May 14, 2025. NFR has requested that both the Petition and the Text Amendment Request be put on the schedule for the June 11, 2025, City Planning Board meeting for a required public hearing.

Separate Approaches to Moving the Niagara Digital Campus Forward

The first document filed by NFR is an updated planned unit development (PUD) Petition, pursuant to Section 1318 of the City Zoning Ordinance.  The document answers all questions raised by counsel to the City of Niagara Falls related to the completeness of an earlier, 500-page PUD submission filed in October 2024, and – significantly – provides critical new noise data showing the Data Center will comply with the applicable standards.

The second filing is a “Text Amendment Request to Revise the City’s High Energy Use Law,” (HEUL), which was enacted in late 2022. The request for a text amendment is designed to provide the City Council with greater flexibility regarding the location of high energy uses and to address noise restrictions that have proven to be unattainable and problematic for City officials, businesses, and residents.

The HEUL filing notes, for example, a key issue that makes compliance with the 2022 ordinance an impossibility: even without any additional development on property currently zoned as residential, commercial, and downtown, noise studies commissioned by NFR show that ambient noise levels already exceed the limits imposed by the law. This has resulted in numerous lawsuits against the City of Niagara Falls by other parties, and highlights the arbitrary, duplicative, and unnecessarily restrictive noise controls under the HEUL.

The HEUL, it should be noted, was enacted after NFR and Urbacon began planning the Niagara Digital Campus for land it owns in Niagara Falls. It was also noted at the time to be a temporary solution that was to be revisited by the City Council.

Councilmember Zajac, in fact, stated this at the public hearing for the HEUL on September 6, 2022. Zajac said: “And, you know, is this Code perfect? Probably not. Will we go back to it and revisit it in a year or so? I would probably say most definitely, just to make some changes and try to make it even better. But I do think this is in the right direction to welcome an industry.”

He added: “To close, my last comment is that I do believe we have to make a full evaluation of this Code if it is approved within the next year with all parties involved, the industry, the administration, our residents, and see what needs to be tweaked on it.”

The full PUD Petition can be found on the Niagara digital campus website, here. The Text Amendment request can be found here.

“With each passing day, it becomes more and more clear that working cooperatively to make the Niagara Digital Campus a reality would be a game-changer for the City of Niagara Falls, its residents, and the local economy,” said Roger Trevino, Executive Vice President of Niagara Falls Redevelopment. “These new filings offer the City the opportunity to work with us, not against us, as we make this project a reality.”

About Niagara Falls Redevelopment

Niagara Falls Redevelopment (NFR) is a private company dedicated to the redevelopment of Niagara Falls, New York. NFR owns more than 440 parcels of prime real estate in the heart of downtown Niagara Falls. With large, ready-to-build parcels just steps away from the falls, NFR has a rare opportunity to participate in the rebirth of one of America’s most beloved cities.

Over the years, NFR has spent more than $116 million in the Niagara Falls area as part of its continuing effort to develop key parcels. This represents one of the most significant private investments of capital in the history of the City of Niagara Falls. NFR’s contributions to the community include property and school taxes totaling nearly $13.2 million, making NFR and its subsidiaries among the largest taxpayers in Niagara Falls.

For more information on the Niagara Digital Campus, visit niagaradigitalcampus.com.

About Urbacon 

Urbacon is a preeminent developer, constructor, and operator of hyperscale and build-to-suit data centers in North America. They provide leading edge facilities with high connectivity, high efficiency, and high security, in flexible geographies with expansion potential.

Founded in 1984, Urbacon brings the competitive advantage of in-house resources with a range of technical proficiencies at their disposal including planning, architecture, engineering, and project management.

Urbacon successfully operates similar facilities in Montreal, Toronto and Richmond Hill, Ontario. Each project brought tremendous economic benefit to its local community and has received the full support of all levels of government.

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BACKGROUND

1. Potential Economic Benefits to the City of Niagara Falls

The new applications come on the heels of a March 2025 study by MRB Group, a well-respected Western New York architectural, engineering and economic consulting firm, that showed that almost $300 million in additional sales and property tax revenues would accrue to the City and School District over a 20-year period from the Niagara Digital Campus project, and that projected employee earnings during this time could exceed $1.66 billion. According to the MRB Group report, the Data Center at Niagara Digital Campus is expected to create an average of nearly 1,000 construction and permanent jobs each year, with estimated annual earnings of $83 million each year.

2. New PUD Petition Highlights Importance of Technology to Niagara Falls’ Future

Importantly, NFR’s PUD Petition includes a summary of the reasons why the City Planning Board shouldn’t delay in considering its application and all the benefits the Data Center at Niagara Digital Campus would bring to the City of Niagara Falls:

It cannot be overstated just how important the data center and technology industries are to national, state, and regional economic development. With the proliferation of artificial intelligence-driven technology, the need for data centers has soared in the United States. Data centers are essential for the United States’ growth and economy because they underpin the digital infrastructure, drive innovation, create jobs, generate tax revenue, and enhance overall energy connectivity and resilience. Their strategic importance will continue to grow as our society becomes increasingly dependent on digital technologies. Secure, abundant, and reliable data storage is critical for everything from high-speed streaming for flexible remote work environments and classroom excellence, to emerging technologies like AI, to enabling digital equity for underserved communities. New York State has signaled its commitment to sustainable technology growth by securing the NY SMART I-Corridor Tech Hub, of which the Niagara Digital Campus promises to be an integral part. As described throughout this submission, Niagara Falls is uniquely positioned to be an innovative and influential leader in the burgeoning high-energy economy by prioritizing the kind of economic development Petitioners are proposing.

3. PUD Petition Details the Continuous Work NFR Has Done in the Face of Conflicting Direction from the City of Niagara Falls

The cover letter to the new PUD Petition details all of the interactions NFR has had with the City of Niagara Falls and its outside counsel, Hodgson Russ LLP, and the contradictory and delaying actions taken by the City and its counsel during that time. As described in the letter:

• NFR and Urbacon began having discussions with City representatives about locating a data center on the property in the Spring of 2021.
• After voicing early enthusiasm for the project through 2021, City leaders decided that the property should instead be the site of what has become known as Centennial Park, an event center that is, as of this date, still unfunded and without an anchor tenant.
• Nevertheless, on July 22, 2024, NFR’s representatives met with the City’s Planning Department to discuss the preparation of a PUD, which had been suggested by the City and its outside counsel to be the most sensible zoning path for NFR’s Data Center. During that meeting, Planning Department representatives agreed to provide an outline of the procedure for NFR to follow in its pursuit of the PUD, since there is no such procedure set forth in the Zoning Code.
• Also during that July 2024 meeting, NFR submitted a voluminous PUD Pre-Application packet, which provided both broad plans and significant detail on the proposed Data Center.
• Despite this, on August 21, 2024, NFR received a letter from Hodgson Russ, withdrawing the City’s offer to outline the appropriate PUD procedure, and instead directing that a “complete application” be filed with the Office of the Mayor, with copies to the Planning Department, Corporation Counsel, and Building Department.
• On October 18, 2024, NFR filed this formal PUD submission with those entities.
• On December 18, 2024, NFR received another letter from Hodgson Russ notifying NFR that the October PUD Submission was incomplete for various reasons, and indicating for the very first time that the City would be considering the PUD application by a different procedure entirely.

NFR and its attorneys point out in the new filing that they do not regard the completeness review performed by Hodgson Russ last fall to be compliant with Section 1302.4.2 of the Zoning Code because the code makes clear that the City Planning Board is the only authority authorized to perform such review. Nevertheless, in its continued attempt to work cooperatively with the City to make the Data Center at Niagara Digital Campus a reality, NFR’s petition addresses every item raised in the Hodgson Russ letter.

“The record is clear,” Trevino said. “We have done everything the City has asked, whether we believe these onerous and contradictory requests to be in keeping with the law or not. We once again ask the City to take action for the benefit of its residents and the local economy by bringing high-tech, career-building jobs and economic opportunity to Niagara Falls.

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