In 2023, the Lerner Corporation accepted a bid to develop an 820 MW, $5 billion data center project at the Old Landover Mall site. By March 2024, the planning board approved the land use permit for the site. After holding the Old Landover Mall site hostage for more than 20 years and severely blighting the land, the Lerners are attempting to sell out Landover to big tech billionaires rather than working with local communities to develop the land in a just, sustainable, and people centered way. 

In July of 2025, Taylor Frazier McCollum started a petition to stop the proposed data center and called out County officials for the lack of transparency and public engagement. Within weeks, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) worked with her to spread the word, interviewing her and other local organizers in the struggle against data centers and other environmental injustices, and, as a result, the petition has already grown to 23,000 plus signatures.

PSL and community members continued this momentum with a press conference and rally ahead of the next Task Force meeting in September, where hundreds of people showed up to voice their opposition to the data center. The Task Force was forced to open up an overflow building down the street to ensure everyone could view the meeting. Several local, state, and national news outlets interviewed organizers and community members—this amplified the growing public disdain for the data center and the covert ways public officials tried to fast-track its approval. 

Since then, PSL has organized bi-weekly community meetings to continue spreading the word about the data center and putting pressure on County officials to abandon the project.The County Executive responded soon after by adopting a temporary moratorium on any reviews or approvals of permits for data centers in the County until the end of the year. The County Council passed emergency legislation to support the pause and declared its intent to work with the planning board to pass comprehensive legislation on data centers by March 2026.  

On October 25th, 2025, the Task Force held its final community meeting before its November 30th recommendation report. Leading up to this meeting, community members held outreach sessions every day for two weeks at nearby grocery stores, metro stations, recreation centers, and neighborhoods. These canvassers informed people about the upcoming meeting and shared talking points to counter the pro-data center myths pushed by the Task Force. This resulted in 450+ people attending the meeting and, in a powerful and militant show of force, refusing to be silenced when Task Force facilitators attempted to silo participants.They made it clear that they don’t want data centers in Landover, PG County, or anywhere else in Maryland and will do whatever it takes to make sure their neighborhoods are not sacrificed for the profits of big tech billionaires!