A Maryland mom with a petition stalled a $5 billion data center: 25,000 signatures

A $5 billion data center campus planned for the former Landover Mall in Prince George's County, Maryland, is on hold, and NPR reports (via WAMU 88.5) that one resident did much of the organizing: Taylor Frazier McCollum, who started a petition that gathered more than 25,000 signatures. One precision up front: "blocked" is the headline's word. The county has not issued a final denial, and the latest legal step sends the project back to the County Council.

The project and the person

According to NPR, the mall closed in 2002 and the site is nearly 90 acres of mostly vacant land. The developer that built the mall won approval from county planners in 2024 for a data center that could occupy more than 80 acres, with ground-breaking expected between 2026 and 2027. Frazier McCollum lived less than a mile away. NPR says she and her young daughter were evicted in 2024 after the waxing center where she worked cut wages, and she was staying in her grandfather's home when she heard about the plan.

Her petition, NPR says, led to widely attended protests and, in the story's words, multiple local moratoriums. She also attended council meetings, testified before Maryland legislators and endorsed candidates. Staci Hartwell, a longtime local environmental activist, told NPR the issue struggled to gain traction before Frazier McCollum joined. Frazier McCollum now wants a full ban on the Landover project and other data centers, and has taken the message to Black communities fighting data centers in Atlanta, Memphis and Zambia, funded by grants.

What the county actually decided

The government record is more specific than the headline:

• 2021: WTOP reported that the council voted to remove itself from the approval process for data centers. Council member Shayla Adams Stafford, whose district includes the site, called that "a loophole" that let the Brightseat Park development go forward.
• July 2026: the council passed a two-year moratorium on hyperscale data centers. Spotlight PA called it the longest such pause in the state and said Council Chair Krystal Oriadha, who sponsored it, would have preferred a full ban. WTOP said the pause does not necessarily mean data centers are blocked for good, and that comprehensive legislation would lift it. We are not printing a vote tally: the outlets we read did not give a consistent one.
• Late October 2026: WTOP reported the council passed a bill requiring the Brightseat Park application to come back before the council, and requiring future data center applications to go through longer review with detailed site plans. Adams Stafford said it would effectively kill the project "since there's so much opposition." That is a council member's prediction, not a ruling on the application.

We could not find the bill number or the text of the legislation in the coverage, and did not locate county records online in this run, so the details above rest on NPR, WTOP and Spotlight PA. Neither NPR nor WTOP quoted the developer in the pieces we read.

The money argument

NPR says the county is dealing with a budget deficit and worries about falling tax revenue after Six Flags America closed last year and thousands of federal workers lost jobs. Council member Wanika Fisher, who favors moving some data center projects forward, told Frazier McCollum at a September meeting that she does not see where the money would otherwise come from, and that a data center "is worth the hard discussion." Frazier McCollum has floated a sports complex, affordable housing or heritage tourism for the site, and concedes none would be as lucrative.

Why it matters beyond Landover

NPR cites about 500 data center moratoriums nationwide, though it says estimates vary. The pattern is local: a site approved by planners, then a neighborhood fight, then a pause that reaches projects not yet built. Our midterms coverage found that few statewide moratoriums are law, which is why county-level action like this is where the real constraints are showing up. Developers and the contractors, electricians and HVAC firms that build the sites carry the timing risk when approvals can be reopened after the fact; see also our reporting on Texas halting permits and on a data center IPO that slipped.

What to watch

• Whether the developer re-files and the council holds a hearing on Brightseat Park.
• Whether the council writes the comprehensive data center law that would end the two-year pause.
• Whether the county finds revenue to fill the gap that Fisher raised.

Sources: NPR/WAMU, Nov. 7, 2026; WTOP, October 2026; WTOP, July 2026; Spotlight PA. This is news reporting, not investment advice.