An evicted mother's fight stopped a $5 billion data center project

In Landover, Maryland, one woman stopped a plan to build a $5 billion data center campus on nearly 90 acres of empty land where the demolished Landover Mall once stood. Her name is Taylor Frazier McCollum, and more than 25,000 people signed her petition.

The Landover Mall closed in 2002, and the site has been mostly vacant since. In 2024, the developer that built the mall won approval from county planners for a data center campus. Word spread through the largely Black community nearby.

When McCollum learned about the project, she said: 'Oh, hell no.' She lived less than a mile away. Her question was simple: why bring water-polluting, diesel-generating data centers right down the street from where people live, work and play?

Unlike most land-use activists trying to protect their homes, McCollum did not own a home. In 2024, she and her young daughter were evicted from their apartment. She was working at a waxing center that cut her wages, and she could no longer cover her rent. They moved into her grandfather's home.

She created a petition that gathered more than 25,000 signatures, leading to widely attended protests and multiple local moratoriums on data centers throughout the county. It blocked the $5 billion project that was set to break ground between 2026 and 2027.

McCollum is one of a number of Americans whose political awakening was triggered by data center development. Across the country, community members have gone to local council hearings to voice their opposition. They have prompted about 500 moratoriums on data centers nationwide, though estimates vary.

The fight pushed McCollum to the forefront of local politics. She went to county meetings, testified before Maryland legislators and endorsed political candidates. She found herself in a coalition of socialists, environmentalists, people angry about their electric bills and neighbors new to organizing. Local media interviewed her, and people in data center circles called her 'the Landover girl'.

Staci Hartwell, a longtime local environmental activist, says she spent years struggling to get traction on the data center issue before McCollum came along. 'This is something that was happening in her neighborhood, and it was really like her awakening,' Hartwell said.

But with data centers paused, some in Prince George's County worry about declining tax revenue. Last year, a local Six Flags closed. The NFL's Washington Commanders announced plans to return to neighboring Washington, D.C. Thousands of federal workers have lost their jobs. The county faces a budget deficit.

In September, McCollum appeared at a county council meeting to advocate for a fund for roof repairs, something her grandfather's home needs. Council member Wanika Fisher, who supports moving some data center projects forward, reminded her that the county needs development. Fisher said: 'Our county has an economic future that we have to grapple with. I don't see where the money is coming from. I think we have to have a real conversation. And I'm not saying that a data center is the answer, but I'm saying it's worth the hard discussion.'

With the Landover project on hold, McCollum now wants a full ban on that and other data center projects. She has lost out on work to attend public meetings or knock on doors, and she has relied on family for rides and childcare. With grants Hartwell and others have found, McCollum has taken her message to Black communities fighting data center growth in Atlanta, Memphis and even across the globe in Zambia.

Her father, Lacy McCollum Jr., sees the data center fight as rooted in civil rights. He said: 'We're talking about the right to water, the right to clean air, the right to a place to live. That's everybody's fight, right? We needed the Medgar Everses. We needed the Martin Luther Kings. We needed the Malcolm X's. People like Taylor, they jump out here so the people behind them get to make progress.'

Some urge her to run for office. She says she wants to pay off her debt and traffic tickets and find a home first. 'I didn't want to have to focus on housing and the campaign and doing everything else,' McCollum explained. 'Now is not maybe the moment for it, but I do have aspirations to run for something.' In the meantime, she is pitching plans to turn the old Landover site into a sports complex or affordable housing, or to use some of it to support heritage tourism in the county. But none of those ideas, she acknowledges, would be as lucrative as a data center campus.