Babst Calland’s multidisciplinary data center development legal team brings decades of experience in land use and zoning, real estate, environmental and regulatory, energy, construction, emerging technologies, and corporate law. The team is currently guiding the development of well over 3,000 MW of new power generation capacity in data center projects – spanning hyperscale campuses and smaller modular facilities – across Pennsylvania and West Virginia. These projects include design, permitting, power generation, interconnection and financing of both behind‑the‑meter generation assets (natural gas turbines, solar + storage, etc.) and fully islanded power systems that provide baseload, redundancy, and resiliency to support mission‑critical workloads.
This team of attorneys leads all phases of data center development: site acquisition and control, power purchase agreements (PPAs) and power generation agreements (PGAs), grid interconnection, regulatory compliance (state and federal), construction contracts (EPC / design‑build / modular construction), economic and tax incentives, land use and zoning, environmental permitting, and OEM and operational agreements including service level, uptime, backup power and decommissioning. This broad scope is critical to ensure that the power infrastructure meets capacity goals but also that risk is managed across jurisdictions, energy market types, and technology choices.
Babst Calland’s representative experience navigating the opportunities and challenges related to data center development includes the following work:
Site Selection & Development
- Guiding large-scale site selection, water and energy access, and infrastructure alignment, with a focus on regulatory compliance and risk analysis.
- Advising on co-located energy infrastructure, including gas pipelines, electric transmission, solar power generation and battery energy storage systems (BESS).
- Advising on land use and zoning, variances, conditional use permits and public hearings for new and expanding data center sites.
Contracts & Transactions
- Structuring and reviewing leasing and colocation agreements addressing power, connectivity, space allocation and shared services.
- Advising on Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC), design-build and architectural service contracts tailored to mission-critical infrastructure.
- Supporting operation and maintenance (OM) matters, including negotiating OM contracts related to power supply and cooling systems, and addressing uptime, preventative maintenance, and vendor oversight.
- Negotiating and drafting enterprise service agreements (SaaS, IaaS), SLAs, service-level agreements 9SLAs), and software licensing terms for virtualized infrastructure and cloud-based platforms.
- Advising on joint ventures, M&A transactions, financing and anchor tenancy for small-scale and large-scale data center developments.
- Structuring and negotiating complex energy service agreements for battery energy storage system (BESS) projects, as well as SREC contracts and solar power purchase agreements (PPAs) on behalf of data center developers and operators, with a focus on pricing mechanisms, performance guarantees, dispatch rights, and risk allocation across project stakeholders.
Permitting & Compliance
- Navigating environmental compliance, utility, and development permitting at federal, state and local levels.
- Structuring public, private and hybrid cloud solutions with attention to data privacy and cross-border compliance.
- Developing policies for data access, governance, retention, AI transparency, and data security and privacy regulatory compliance.
- Providing employment law guidance, workforce compliance, and skilled labor sourcing for data center projects.
- Representing clients in litigation and disputes involving commercial contracts, zoning environmental compliance and cybersecurity and privacy-related incidents.
What’s Next for Data Centers in Pennsylvania? Navigating Opportunities & Challenges Ahead
VideoAs demand for AI, cloud computing, and digital storage accelerates, Pennsylvania is emerging as a strategic hub for data center development. This growth presents significant opportunities for developers, energy providers, investors, and host communities – while also introducing complex regulatory, infrastructure, and energy challenges for the region. …
What’s Next for Data Centers in Pennsylvania? An On-the-Ground Look at Navigating the Opportunities, Challenges
Pittsburgh Business Times
(featuring Justine Kasznica, Gina Buchman, Anna Jewart, and Dave White)
Data center development is accelerating across Pennsylvania, creating both opportunities and complex challenges for businesses and communities. …
Babst Calland Among Top-Ranked Firms in Associate Satisfaction Survey
BTI Consulting Group’s BTI Associate Satisfaction A-Listers 2026: BTI Survey of Law Firms Where Associates are Happiest report recognizes law firms that outperform peers based on direct associate feedback across factors tied to retention, engagement and long‑term career satisfaction. …
Powering the Region’s Data Center Growth
TEQ Magazine
(featuring Justine Kasznica)
Guiding hyperscale and modular projects across Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Babst Calland is helping shape the power-secure future of this mission-critical infrastructure. …
Navigating Opportunities and Challenges for Data Centers in the Region
TEQ Hub
(featuring Justine Kasznica)
The rapid growth of data centers – driven by cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the need for low-latency digital infrastructure – has transformed what were once primarily real estate projects into some of the most complex developments in the energy and infrastructure sectors in our region. …
POWERING THE FUTURE: Navigating Opportunities and Challenges for Data Centers in the Region
Pittsburgh Business Times
(featuring Justine Kasznica and Anna Jewart)
Energy-rich and workforce-strong, Pennsylvania is the focus of an increased national demand to develop and power data centers – centralized technology hardware facilities that support digital services such as AI, streaming and more. …
POWERING THE FUTURE: Navigating Opportunities and Challenges for Data Centers in the Region
VideoAs the national demand for AI and digital services surges, energy-rich Pennsylvania has emerged as a top destination for data center development. With trillions of dollars projected in private capital driving these projects, the regional economic opportunities are vast—but so are the hurdles. …
Powering the Region’s Data Center Growth
TEQ Hub
(featuring Justine Kasznica)
The rapid growth of data centers – driven by cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the need for low-latency digital infrastructure – has transformed what were once primarily real estate projects into some of the most complex developments in the energy and infrastructure sectors in our region. …
AI Trends and Insights for 2026 — Emerging Tech Law Series
PodcastDo you want to understand where AI is really heading and how to stay ahead of it? Not the hype, not the headlines. We’re talking real world legal business and operational shifts already reshaping companies right now. …
New EPA Webpage Compiles Clean Air Act Resources for Data Center & AI Projects
Firm Alert
(by Gary Steinbauer, Gina Buchman and Christina Puhnaty)
In response to President Trump’s Executive Order 14179, “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (AI),” EPA announced this week a new EPA webpage dedicated to compiling agency resources related to the Clean Air Act requirements potentially applicable to the development of data centers and AI facilities across the United States. …
