Amazon Web Services has formally withdrawn its application to build a massive data center campus near the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Lusby, Calvert County Government announced, ending months of intense local debate over a project that had become one of the most contentious development fights in the county’s recent history.
The county said AWS has withdrawn its Conceptual Site Development Plan for the proposed Calvert Technology Center and “decided not to pursue” the project. AWS submitted the initial application on May 4, paying application fees on May 18 and environmental health fees on May 26, putting the proposal into county review before this week’s withdrawal. The company did not publicly state a reason for pulling out, and referred questions about the project’s status to its press office. Calvert County said it remains committed to transparency and will continue notifying residents of significant development proposals going forward.
As proposed, the Calvert Technology Center would have been Calvert County’s first large-scale data center development, spanning three separate campuses on roughly 2,000 acres of Constellation Energy land adjacent to the Calvert Cliffs plant at 1650 Calvert Cliffs Parkway. Site plans filed with the county called for eight data center buildings, ranging from about 266,000 to 332,000 square feet each, totaling roughly 2.46 million square feet of data center space alongside supporting office, utility and security buildings, connected by a private access drive.
AWS representatives described the facility’s power needs as roughly 500 megawatts, enough electricity to power more than 375,000 homes, according to industry estimates cited in coverage of the project, with the company planning to draw power through a purchase agreement with Constellation and connect to the regional PJM grid.
The project’s proposed pairing with a nuclear plant reflected a broader industry trend of technology companies seeking direct access to reliable, carbon-free power for energy-hungry data centers — Constellation struck a similar arrangement last year with Microsoft involving the restart of a reactor at Pennsylvania’s former Three Mile Island site. AWS representatives told Calvert County residents the Lusby project would not have required new water withdrawals, saying a data center at the site would tap into Calvert Cliffs’ existing Chesapeake Bay cooling water system rather than drawing additional water from the bay.
The proposal became public in dramatic fashion. In March, Amazon job postings for data center construction roles in Lusby began circulating on social media before residents had any formal notice a project was under consideration, prompting confusion and anger about what, if any, agreements county officials had already made.
Residents subsequently learned that Commissioner Earl “Buddy” Hance had signed a nondisclosure agreement in March 2025 with a company called Rowan Green Data LLC, later renamed Rowan Digital Infrastructure, adding to public frustration over secrecy surrounding data center discussions.
At their March 3 meeting, commissioners invited an AWS representative to address the board directly and voted unanimously to begin exploring a possible 24-month moratorium on data center approvals and permits, though that moratorium effort ultimately did not take effect before AWS filed its formal site plan in May.
Amazon held a community open house on the proposal March 26 at Calvert Middle School, drawing protesters who lined the road with signs opposing the project even as company representatives, including Amazon’s Becky Ford, stressed that no agreements had been finalized. “There are no existing agreements in place between Amazon and Calvert County, and this is still very much a project we are evaluating,” Ford told attendees at the time.
Commissioners separately voted in May to require any future data center projects to comply with updated zoning text amendments rather than being grandfathered in under older rules, part of a broader effort by the county to tighten regulations governing the industry even as officials said they were not opposed to data center development in principle.
Calvert County’s official data center policy page has said the county does not participate in negotiating specific agreements for individual projects but has pursued proactive zoning updates — including requirements for closed-loop cooling, restrictions on groundwater use, infrastructure funding obligations for developers and Tier 4 generator emissions standards — to prepare for future data center proposals “as a small, rural peninsula surrounded by water,” in the county’s own words.
With AWS’s withdrawal, the specific Calvert Technology Center proposal is no longer under county review, though officials have not said whether Amazon, Constellation or another company might pursue a revised or different project on the same or nearby land in the future. More information on the withdrawn application is available at choosecalvert.com/DataCenters, and questions about AWS’s decision can be directed to the company at amazon-pr@amazon.com.
