Maryland Woman Evicted in 2024 Helps Block a $5 Billion Data Center Near Her Home
Taylor Frazier McCollum's petition drew over 25,000 signatures and helped spur moratoriums in Prince George's County, as data center backlash spreads nationwide.
LANDOVER, Md. — Nearly 90 acres of weeds and overgrown grass stretch across the former Landover Mall site, empty since the mall closed in 2002. In 2024 the developer that built the mall won approval from county planners for a $5 billion data center campus there. A local woman who had never been an activist helped stop it.
Taylor Frazier McCollum lived less than a mile from the site and learned of the plan as word spread through the largely Black neighborhood. "I was like, 'Oh, hell no,'" she told WAMU reporter Jenny Abamu, in a story distributed by NPR. "Why would you want to bring 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 does not own a home. In 2024 she and her young daughter were evicted from their apartment after the waxing center where she worked cut wages and she could no longer cover rent. They have since moved around and were living in her grandfather's house when she heard about the project.
She started a petition that collected more than 25,000 signatures, which led to widely attended protests and then multiple local moratoriums on data centers across Prince George's County. The campaign blocked the project, which was set to break ground between 2026 and 2027. She went to county meetings, testified before Maryland legislators and endorsed candidates, joining a coalition of socialists, environmentalists, residents angry about electric bills and neighbors new to organizing. Data center industry insiders called her "the Landover girl."
Her fight is part of a national pattern. Residents across the country have crowded local council hearings to oppose data centers, and estimates vary, but roughly 500 moratoriums have been imposed nationwide. Staci Hartwell, a longtime local environmental activist, said she spent years struggling to get traction on the issue until Frazier McCollum arrived. "This is something that was happening in her neighborhood, and it was really like her awakening," Hartwell said.
The pause has a cost. Prince George's County faces a budget deficit after a Six Flags park closed, the Washington Commanders announced plans to return to Washington, D.C., and thousands of federal workers lost jobs. Council member Wanika Fisher, who supports moving some data center projects forward, told Frazier McCollum in September that the county needs development. "I'm not saying that a data center is the answer, but I'm saying it's worth the hard discussion," Fisher said.
Frazier McCollum now wants a full ban on the Landover project and others. With grants raised by Hartwell and others, she has carried her message to Black communities opposing data centers in Atlanta and Memphis and as far away as Zambia. She has lost work to attend meetings and knocked on doors while relying on family for rides and child care. Her father, Lacy McCollum Jr., sees it as a civil rights fight about "the right to water, the right to clean air, the right to a place to live."
Some urge her to run for office. She says she first wants to pay off debt and traffic tickets and find a home, though she has "aspirations to run for something." She is pitching ideas for the Landover site, including a sports complex, affordable housing and heritage tourism, while acknowledging none would be as lucrative as a data center campus.
