Taylor Frazier McCollum actively opposed the possible data center at the site of the demolished Landover Mall in Prince George’s County, less than a mile from her home. If the project is built, the development could occupy more than 80 acres.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
hide caption
Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
Overgrown grass and weeds seem to stretch to the horizon on nearly 90 acres of empty land in Landover, Maryland. It was formerly the Landover Shopping Centre, but this closed in 2002 and the site has remained largely vacant since.
In 2024, the developer who built the mall won approval from county planners for a $5 billion data center campus, and word began to spread through the largely black community nearby.
“I was like, ‘Oh, no,’” Taylor Frazier McCollum said, describing the moment she heard about the project. She lived less than a mile away. “Why would you want to put water-polluting, diesel-generating data centers right down the street from where people live, work, play? It just didn’t make sense to me.”
Frazier McCollum is one of many Americans whose political awakening was sparked by the development of data centers. Across the country, community members turned out at local council hearings to voice their opposition. They have caused – although estimates vary – around 500 data center moratoriums nationwide.
A different type of land use activist
Unlike many land-use activists who try to protect their homes from threats in their backyards, Frazier McCollum does not own a home. In 2024, she and her young daughter were evicted from their apartment. She worked at a waxing center whose wages were falling and she could no longer pay her rent.
“It was difficult,” Frazier McCollum recalled. “Because I created the ideal life by paying us to live in this apartment and have our own space…and then have it taken away from us…It felt like something that was never going to end.”
They moved and were living in her grandfather’s house when she heard about the proposed project less than a mile away.
Taylor Frazier McCollum outside her grandfather’s house, where she was living when she heard about the proposed data center site less than a mile away in Landover, Maryland.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
hide caption
Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
She created a petition that garnered over 25,000 signatures, leading to numerous protests and several local moratoriums placed on data centers throughout the county. He blocked the $5 billion project which was supposed to start between 2026 and 2027.
This fight pushed Frazier McCollum to the forefront of local politics. She traveled to county meetings, testified before Maryland legislators and supported political candidates. She found herself in a coalition of socialists, environmentalists, people unhappy with their electricity bills and neighbors new to organizing.
Local media interviewed her and people in the data center community called her “the girl from Landover.”
After some losses, the county needs revenue and data centers could help
Staci Hartwell, a longtime local environmental activist, says she spent years fighting for traction on the data center issue before Frazier McCollum came along.
“It was something that was happening in her neighborhood, and it was really like she was waking up,” Hartwell said.
But with data centers suspended, some Prince George’s County residents are concerned about declining tax revenue. Last year, a local Six Flags closed its doors. NFL commanders in Washington have announced plans to return to their neighboring country, Washington, DC. Thousands of federal workers have lost their jobs. The county is facing a budget deficit.
The possible site of the data center, which was formerly the Landover Mall, in Prince George’s County. If the project is built, the development will occupy more than 80 acres.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
hide caption
Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPR
In September, Frazier McCollum appeared at a county council meeting to advocate for a fund for roof repairs, something her grandfather’s house needs. Council member Wanika Fisher, who supports moving forward with some data center projects, reminded him that the county needs development.
“Our county has an economic future that we need to address,” Fisher said, responding to the request. “I don’t see where the money is coming from. I think we need to have a real conversation. And I’m not saying a data center is the answer, but I’m saying it’s worth talking about.”
Frazier McCollum is now expanding his activism and going to new places
With the Landover project on hold, Frazier McCollum now wants a total ban on this and other data center projects. And through grants found by Hartwell and others, Frazier McCollum took his message to Black communities struggling with data center growth in Atlanta, Memphis and even around the world in Zambia.
“I feel like so many people depend on this fight being successful,” Frazier McCollum said. “Not just for me, but even across the country, to set a precedent for other people who are fighting against large-scale data centers.”
She no longer has a job attending public meetings or knocking on doors, and she relies on her family for transportation and childcare.
His father, Lacy McCollum Jr., sees the fight against data centers as rooted in civil rights.
“We are talking about the right to water, the right to clean air, the right to housing. It’s everyone’s fight, isn’t it?” Lacy McCollum Jr. said. “As much as I fear for her, we need these people. We needed the Medgar Evers. We needed the Martin Luther King’s. We needed the Malcolm X’s. People like Taylor, they jump here so the people behind them can get ahead.”
Some are urging her to run for office. She says she first wants to pay off her debt and traffic tickets and find somewhere to live.
“I didn’t want to focus on housing and the countryside and everything else,” Frazier McCollum said. “Now may not be the time, but I have ambitions to run for something.”
In the meantime, she plans to turn the former Landover site into a sports complex or affordable housing, or use part 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.
Jenny Abamu is a journalist for WAMU.
Gn headline
