LOWELL — Chalk up a small win for the little guy.
Middlesex Superior Court Judge William Barrett granted a motion to stay further installation of emergency backup diesel generators at Markley Lowell, a data center facility in the city’s Sacred Heart neighborhood, while the case proceeds in the court.
“It is hereby ordered that the Plaintiffs’ motion to stay the enforcement of the Air Permit is Allowed, but only with respect to the four backup diesel generators that have not yet been installed,” Barrett wrote in his Aug. 10 ruling. “Markley is permitted to operate the four generators [it] installed previously, subject to the special conditions the Air Permit imposes.”
This past April, ten residents filed a lawsuit that challenged the final decision by MassDEP authorizing Markley’s operation of 27 industrial diesel backup generators and 16 cooling towers in the middle of a densely populated residential community prior to final plan approval, a process the suit called a “flawed air quality plan.”
The motion was heard in court at a July 29 hearing.
“We are grateful to the Court for recognizing the various ways in which the Department fell short of these promises in greenlighting Markley’s expansion of its data center in this already overburdened community and for its affirmation of the right of residents of Sacred Heart and other Environmental Justice communities to participate in shaping the future of their communities,” said Stephanie Safdi.
She is the clinical associate professor of Law at Yale Law School and director of the Yale Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic.
Air quality, generators drive resident concerns
Air quality has long been a concern with residents. The neighborhood has been designated by the state as an environmental justice community due to the large minority population.
According to the suit, “The census tract that houses the Data Center also ranks is the top 90th percentile nationwide for proportion of adults with asthma.”
In April 2025, the Markley Group applied to install eight additional diesel emergency generators at the Lowell facility at 1 Markley Way. The company had previously applied for and received air permits from MassDEP for its other 19 diesel emergency generators, for a total of 27 generators holding roughly 168,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
MassDEP said it reviewed Markley Group’s air permit application to make sure it met all compliance, reporting and environmental justice requirements, and issued a plan approval that July.
Residents appealed that decision to the Office of Appeals and Dispute Resolution later that month.
OADR is an independent office within MassDEP that resolves appeals of all MassDEP permitting and enforcement decisions. OADR issued a recommended decision to MassDEP’s Commissioner Bonnie Heiple on December 23, 2025, affirming the air permit.
Heiple issued a final decision in March of this year, affirming the air permit. By April, the petitioners – now plaintiff’s – filed suit and appealed the decision before Judge Barrett.
Plaintiff Eileen Castle’s house directly abuts the data center’s eastern property line with its two water tanks and dozens of chillers. In her affidavit to the court, she said she had never met a MassDEP representative.
“To my knowledge, no MassDEP official came to my neighborhood prior to issuance of the Plan Approval to investigate the impacts of the Data Center on the environment, our health, and our community,” she said. “No MassDEP official or staff person has come to speak with us afterwards either.”
The judge’s ruling acknowledged that communities like the Sacred Heart neighborhood are often overlooked and left out of the administrative process.
“Based on the limited information presently before the court, however, it appears that the attempts to engage with the community were lacking,” Barrett said.
Markley Lowell history
The Markley Group LLC is a state-of-the-art data-storage and cloud-computing company. In addition to its Lowell facility, the company has an almost million-square-foot fiber data hub center, also known as a connected carrier hotel, above Macy’s in Boston’s Downtown Crossing.
Like Markley Boston, Markley Lowell is a colocation data center that rents secure space to more than 500 clients to run their own technology. Its systems power and provide routing to a wide variety of private companies, state and local governments, universities and internet companies.
Lowell’s Planning Board initially approved the company’s site plan in 2015 and the council followed suit in 2016 for the redeveloped site that sits in the footprint of the former Prince pasta plant, which is zoned light industrial.
But neighbors have consistently testified to several city boards about noise and air quality concerns, violations of approved permitting, water and utility usage, as well as a lack of communication and transparency by the Boston- and Los Angeles-based global company.
The company has vigorously denied these claims.
President Jeff Markley said the recent order was based on a brief summary of the facts.
“We believe once more information is before the Court, it will be clear that the previous dismissal of the appeal at issue was proper and that the Court will find in favor of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and Markley,” he said by email Monday.
City Council passes 1-year moratorium
This March, in response to ongoing community concerns, the City Council voted 10-0 to impose a 360-day moratorium on the expansion of existing data centers, and the construction of new ones.
The moratorium stems from a motion made by Councilor Kim Scott, who represents Lowell’s Sacred Heart neighborhood.
Scott said she was happy for the win.
“I am proud to stand with the residents in my district to support them in their right to be heard about the data center in their backyards,” she said by text Monday. “These projects greatly impact our neighborhoods and should never move forward by bypassing public input.”
The broader challenge to Markley’s air permit remains pending in Middlesex Superior Court and will be resolved and judgment issued by April 2027.
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