NYC developer pays $16.2M to nearly triple Archbald land holdings for planned data centers
A New York City developer with plans to build two data centers in Archbald has nearly tripled its land position in the borough, paying almost $16.2 million for three lots in the Valley View Business Park.
DC VV LLC, a Delaware limited liability company that shares PNK Group’s address, bought the 80.81-acre tract from the Scranton Lackawanna Industrial Building Co. (SLIBCO) on the southeast side of Archbald Heights Road, according to a deed recorded Wednesday in Lackawanna County. SLIBCO is the industrial development arm of the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce. The deed lists DC VV at 17 State St. in New York City, the address PNK Group’s website gives for its headquarters.
The newly acquired lots sit immediately west of a 44.47-acre parcel PNK bought from SLIBCO in February 2024 for about $3.32 million through PNK P1 LLC. Combined, the site now covers just over 125 contiguous acres in the Archbald portion of the business park, giving the developer more room to plan the proposed campus and its power needs.
PNK has not yet filed a conditional-use application with the borough, according to Archbald Borough Manager Dan Markey, who said no new data center applications had been received as of Thursday afternoon. When an application does come in, it will trigger a public hearing process and a decision by borough council. In November, four council members voted to approve zoning regulations that allow data centers in designated overlay districts, including one that covers most of the business park. That ordinance is facing a court challenge from a group of residents.
Anton Voronkin, PNK Group’s chief development officer, said last month that the developer plans to build two data centers with a combined capacity of 300 megawatts, plus a substation. He described the facilities as turnkey infrastructure, meaning PNK would build everything needed to operate a data center except the computer equipment itself.
The Archbald purchase adds to PNK’s growing footprint across Lackawanna County. The company has already built a 255,776-square-foot warehouse on Valley View Drive and a 162,907-square-foot warehouse on Alberigi Drive in the Jessup section of the business park, and it bought land in Moosic in July for a planned 460,000-square-foot warehouse on Davis Street.
PNK Group says it has been active in the U.S. since 2017, although its origins go back to Russia around 2003. Voronkin said last month that the company withdrew its brand from Russia in 2024.
“You can’t really do business in the United States if there are any ties with Russia, so that’s why we decided to — the company decided to just withdraw the brand and start developing the business in the United States,” he said. “And we’re doing it quite successfully.”
The land deal underscores the region’s emerging position as a data center market, and it gives PNK a site capable of supporting a project of the scale it has outlined. How the additional acreage will shape the project’s design or timeline remains unclear. The court challenge to the borough’s zoning overlay is a potential hurdle, but the acquisition is a clear signal that the developer is positioning itself to move forward if approvals line up.