Massachusetts data centers: what the public record shows.

These notes name selected records, say which kinds of public evidence were checked and show what remains missing. They do not add anything to the published counts.

• Economic development incentives — Partly checked
  • www.mass.gov is unreachable in the current review, so no state incentive programme page, award list or certification register was read.
  • The 2024 tax exemption the Compute Atlas notes attribute to the Westfield project was not verified from any source.
  • No Massachusetts Economic Assistance Coordinating Council certified-project list was consulted.
• Utility commission and large-load records — Checked
  • The docket index carries descriptions and petitioners but not filing text, so a data center named inside a filing rather than in a docket caption would not be found.
  • ISO New England interconnection or large-load queue records were not consulted.
  • Eversource, National Grid and Unitil tariff filings were not read individually.

  Selected records

  • Massachusetts DPU Fileroom docket list (GetAll API, 11,575 dockets) · Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities
• Environmental and construction permits — Partly checked
  • No MassDEP air or emergency-engine permit was read, although the TierPoint Andover page itself describes two 2.5 MW generators that would normally appear in such records.
  • No MEPA Environmental Notification Form or EEA number was retrieved for the Westfield project or any other.
  • Municipal building and grading permits were not reachable; the Westfield and Lowell city sites did not respond during review.

  Selected records

  • EEA ePLACE Public Access Portal (MEPA project record search) · Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
• Local planning, assessor and map records — Checked
  • Massachusetts assessor use codes have no data center class, so the parcel screen depended on owner names and known addresses; an operator holding a site through an unrecognised LLC would not be found.
  • Westfield and Lowell city sites did not respond during review, so no planning board decision, zoning case or moratorium text was read for either.
  • Boston and Somerville planning and zoning case files were not consulted.
  • MAP_PAR_ID is null for Lowell rows in the statewide layer, so the Markley Lowell parcels are identified by LOC_ID only.

  Selected records

  • MassGIS Standardized Parcels with Assessor Data – statewide owner-name sweep for data center operators · MassGIS / Executive Office of Technology Services and Security
  • MassGIS Standardized Parcels with Assessor Data – address query, 15 Shattuck Rd Andover and 191/199 Servistar Industrial Way Westfield · MassGIS / Executive Office of Technology Services and Security
  • MassGIS Standardized Parcels with Assessor Data – Inner Belt Road, Somerville · MassGIS / Executive Office of Technology Services and Security
• Tax abatements and development agreements — Partly checked
  • The 2024 Westfield tax exemption reported in the licensed dataset was not verified.
  • The disputed Lowell abatement and its job commitments were not read.
  • No state Economic Assistance Coordinating Council or municipal TIF register was consulted.

  Selected records

  • City of Westfield website · City of Westfield, Massachusetts
  • City of Lowell website · City of Lowell, Massachusetts
• Operator disclosures — Checked
  • Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Oracle and Apple location pages were not checked for Massachusetts; none of these operators appears in any source opened here.
  • Markley Group's own site was not yet reviewed directly, so its Boston and Lowell capacity claims come only from the licensed dataset.
  • Iron Mountain and Equinix facility pages were not yet reviewed directly, so the two new parcel research leads have no operator disclosure at all.

  Selected records

  • CoreSite BO1 - Boston Data Center site page · CoreSite
  • TierPoint Boston (Andover) data center site page · TierPoint
• Open datasets and directories — Checked
  • Directory listings (Data Center Map, Baxtel, datacenters.com, PeeringDB) were not yet reviewed directly; the Baxtel and Data Center Map URLs the dataset cites for Westfield and Markley Boston were not retrieved.
  • No cross-check was made against FracTracker or other trackers.

  Selected records

  • Compute Atlas licensed directory, state extract · Compute Atlas
• Closures, withdrawals and former names — Checked
  • The reported Westfield council moratorium and the reported Lowell moratorium were not read; both city sites did not respond during review.
  • The Massachusetts lawsuit reported against the Lowell facility was not traced to a court docket.
  • No archived or historical sweep was made for Massachusetts data centers that closed before 2021.

  Selected records

  • City of Holyoke website search for "data center" · City of Holyoke, Massachusetts
• News and other discovery — Not checked
  • No news or advocacy source was opened for Massachusetts; the Boston Globe, WBUR, Boston.com, Harvard Crimson, NBC Boston and Working Mass articles the licensed dataset cites were not retrieved.