Philadelphia colocation: nobody has proposed a data center in the city, and it is writing the rules anyway.

How much does colocation cost in Philadelphia?

Recent quotes we received for Northeast ran $200 to $240 per kW per month for up to 500 kW, falling to $165 to $205 above 1 MW.

We have no published Philadelphia asking-rent band to cite, so the Northeast Region quotes are the figure to plan with.

Smaller deployments cost more per kW. These are recent quotes we received, not a statement that space is available. Cross-connects, remote hands and one-time setup are extra. Operators often give 2–3 free months on a new term. See every region's quote ranges.

Philadelphia cabinet and cage prices

Smaller deployments are priced per cabinet or per cage rather than per kW. Use these monthly ranges to set a first-pass budget. They are not provider offers, and a building on this page is not a claim that space is available in it.

Based on quotes we received in the 30 days before 21 October 2026. Taxes, cross-connects, remote hands and one-time costs are extra. Replace these ranges with a normalized written quote before approval. How power is billed is covered in how colocation power is billed.

Get Philadelphia colocation prices for your setup

Tell us the racks, power and timing you need. A scout comes back with matching Philadelphia options and quoted prices.

Who is actually plugged in across Philadelphia

A building existing and a building being connected are different facts, and only one of them decides whether your traffic can get where it needs to go cheaply. These figures come from PeeringDB, which the network operators themselves maintain, so every row below links to the building's own public entry.

The most connected buildings here

From PeeringDB, which is maintained by the network operators present in these buildings rather than by the landlords, which is what makes it worth more than a directory. Two limits. Entries are voluntary, so a building showing no networks may be single tenant or may simply never have registered. And a network being present says nothing about whether the building has space, power or a price for you: that is still a call.

Who offers colocation in Philadelphia

These are the operators with a building listed in PeeringDB across the Philadelphia area, grouped by company. Five of them sit in one building, 401 North Broad Street. A building on this list is a building that exists, not a claim that it has space for you.

Three more entries list no networks at all: Colocation America in Audubon, Web Werks in Conshohocken and 833 Chestnut Street in Center City. A listing with no networks may be a single tenant site or a stale entry, so confirm it is still operating before you count it. We leave out the Sungard Availability Services entry at 401 North Broad. Sungard sold its US data centers and wound down its North American business after its 2022 bankruptcy (Data Center Dynamics).

From the public PeeringDB export, the same file behind the table above. Networks are counted per building and added up per operator. No operator here is linked or priced, and none paid to be listed.

Why Philadelphia is a market at all

Philadelphia is an interconnection and enterprise market. It is the sixth largest US city, it sits between two of the largest data center markets in the world, and it has almost no wholesale capacity of its own. The buildings that matter are downtown carrier hotels and regional colocation sites. They serve local businesses, universities, hospitals and financial firms, not hyperscale tenants.

Geography explains it. Northern Virginia is two hundred miles south. New Jersey's Hudson waterfront is ninety miles north. Campus-sized requirements go there instead, over excellent fiber.

Interconnection is concentrated. One building on North Broad Street carries more than four in every ten network presences in the metro. If that building does not suit you, choices narrow fast.

Philadelphia by the numbers

Every figure here links to the record or report it came from. None of them is a measure of space you can buy.

We have no published Philadelphia vacancy or inventory figure to cite. CBRE does not break Philadelphia out as a data center market, and the directory counts we found disagree with each other by a factor of three, so none is shown.

What has been announced in Philadelphia

Announced capacity is collected by hand from trade reporting and company statements, and each figure links to the report it came from. It is kept apart from the permit record below and never added to it: one is a document a jurisdiction issued, the other is a plan a company published. Neither is availability.

Who decides whether a new building gets power

Pennsylvania sits inside PJM, the largest grid operator in the country. In August 2025 PJM forecast peak load growth of 32 gigawatts by 2030, mostly from data centers. Who pays for that growth is now the state's defining energy fight. Three decisions in the last year set the terms for anything new near Philadelphia.

• FERC accepted the PECO and Amazon agreement. On November 21, 2025 federal regulators accepted the transmission agreement under which Amazon pays for grid upgrades to serve its planned Falls Township campus in Bucks County. PJM's market monitor had asked FERC to reject it. FERC said cost and reliability effects were outside the scope of the case, and that the approval sets no precedent for other agreements (Utility Dive, RTO Insider).
• The state wrote a model large load tariff. The Public Utility Commission adopted it on April 30, 2026 for customers above 50 MW, or 100 MW in aggregate. It guides each utility's own tariff filing, and PECO's own version will set the deposit, term and minimum-bill terms here (PUC).
• The governor tied state permits to local approval. Executive Order 2026-05, signed August 18, 2026, sets grid terms for data centers above 25 MW of peak demand. For projects without those terms, the state does not start its review until local zoning approvals are in hand. It also took data centers out of the state's permit fast track (Executive Order 2026-05).

For a colocation buyer this matters less than it sounds. A cabinet or a cage in an operating building runs on power the building already has. It matters when a provider promises new megawatts on a date. Ask whether that power is already energized, or whether it still needs a PECO agreement under the new rules.

What the city is doing about it

Philadelphia is writing rules before anyone has applied. In July 2026 the Planning Commission named the only two city sites large enough for a modern data center. The first is the Bellwether District at 3143 West Passyunk Avenue, about 1,300 acres of mostly undeveloped land already zoned industrial. The second is 2600 Grant Avenue, a city owned property near the airport in the Northeast. The commission's stated concern is jobs. Planners put a data center at roughly 13 percent of the jobs a warehouse of the same size would carry.

On September 16, 2026 Mayor Cherelle Parker signed Executive Order 6-26. It creates a citywide Data Center Task Force to study energy and water use, infrastructure, public health and neighborhood impacts. Its recommendations are due June 30, 2027, and may include changes to city law. The city states that the order does not authorize or approve any new data center (City of Philadelphia).

City Council has not introduced a moratorium or a zoning bill, though a citywide campaign is asking for one (PhillyVoice). None of this touches the existing downtown buildings. It governs what could be built next.

The suburbs are saying no as well

A site sold as "Philadelphia" is often in Montgomery, Chester or Bucks County. Those townships are where the large proposals went, and many of them have stalled.

• King of Prussia. Upper Merion supervisors denied all five data center land development plans 5-0 on August 13, 2026. The largest was four buildings and about 1.9 million square feet on Renaissance Boulevard (township minutes).
• Limerick. The planning commission voted 8-0 in April not to recommend an eight-building campus until 18 conditions were met. A second case at the former Publicker site has an extension to January 29, 2027 (April minutes, township notice).
• Falls Township. Amazon's campus was approved in March 2025 and is under construction. In July 2026 the township declared part of its zoning ordinance invalid and started rewriting it. The township says that does not affect Amazon's approval (township minutes).

A denial or a rewrite does not change what operating buildings can sell you today. It does mean a suburban build promised for 2027 or 2028 has a zoning risk to price in.

What the public permit record shows

The records on file here are state air registrations, nearly all at buildings the register lists as operating. None carries a filing date, so none shows new construction. They tell you which operators run sizable sites in the metro, not what is being built.

Pennsylvania air permits in the Philadelphia metro, from the Spring Garden and North Broad carrier hotels out to King of Prussia and Fairless Hills. Every figure below is a count of filings we collected ourselves, and every row links to the record it came from.

Operators appearing by name: TierPoint (4), Flexential (2), Amazon Web Services (1), Equinix (1).

The filings on the record

Collected from EPA ECHO air facility records for Pennsylvania. A permit or air-register entry documents a site or proposed work. It does not establish current construction or available space, and no public filing anywhere discloses what is contractible at a named building. That answer comes from an operator call, which is the part we do by hand. See how we verify capacity.

Where the market actually is, submarket by submarket

Who offers wholesale or powered shell near Philadelphia?

Inside the city, nobody we can point to. No data center had been proposed within city limits as of July 2026 (The Philadelphia Inquirer). The operating buildings are retail and interconnection sites, sized for cabinets and cages rather than whole halls.

The suburbs do not fill the gap yet. Upper Merion denied all five King of Prussia plans in August 2026. Limerick's cases are still pending. Falls Township is Amazon's own campus, built for Amazon rather than for lease. All three are covered above.

For a block of a megawatt or more, the realistic choices are:

• A larger suite in an operating Philadelphia building. Operators sometimes have a block open. The capacity box near the top of this page shows what they have reported to us here, with dates.
• The Lehigh Valley, about sixty miles north. TierPoint has announced a 100 MW power expansion at its TekPark campus in Breinigsville. The Lehigh Valley guide has the source and what is still unconfirmed.
• Northern New Jersey or Northern Virginia. Both are established wholesale markets within synchronous replication distance. See the New York and New Jersey guide and the Ashburn guide.

How a wholesale deal is priced and contracted differs from retail colocation. Our wholesale guide explains the terms.

What drives a Philadelphia colocation quote

• The building. A cabinet at 401 North Broad buys carrier choice. The same cabinet in a suburban site usually costs less per month and more in cross-connects back downtown.
• Committed power, not space. Quotes here are priced per kW of committed power. A cabinet drawing 2 kW and one drawing 10 kW are different products at different prices.
• Cross-connects. In a carrier hotel they are a recurring monthly line, and a multi-carrier design can add more than the cabinet itself. Ask for every cross-connect priced on the same sheet.
• Term. Longer terms buy lower rates and free months at the start. Ask what the renewal increase is, in writing, before you sign.
• Size of the block. Per-kW rates fall as the commitment grows. The quote ranges at the top of this page show how far.

Risks to resolve before shortlisting a facility

• Concentration. Over four in ten network presences sit at one North Broad Street address. Plan diverse paths out of it, or a second building.
• Promised power. If the space is not yet built or energized, get the PECO service date in writing and the operator's remedy if it slips.
• Zoning outside the city. Get the municipality for any suburban site and check its current data center rules.
• Density. Ask what the building can actually cool per cabinet today, not what the design allows.
• Exit terms. Renewal increases and early termination are where a good first-year price gets taken back.

When this market is right, and when it is the wrong choice

• Right when your users, staff or regulators are here: hospitals, universities and financial firms needing low latency to their offices. 401 North Broad gives real carrier choice.
• Right as disaster recovery for a New York or Northern Virginia primary, close enough for synchronous replication.
• Wrong for megawatt requirements. There is no wholesale product and no announced campus in the city. Shop Northern Virginia or New Jersey. The Lehigh Valley guide covers TierPoint's TekPark and Bethlehem buildings.
• For a suburban site, ask which carriers are on-net and what a cross-connect to 401 North Broad costs and takes to provision.

What to watch next

• PECO's own large load tariff filing under the state's model. It will set the deposit and minimum-bill terms for any new large load in the city.
• The city task force's recommendations, due June 30, 2027, and whether Council acts on a moratorium before then.
• Limerick's Publicker case, extended to January 29, 2027, and any appeal of the King of Prussia denials.
• Any first proposal for the Bellwether District or 2600 Grant Avenue. It would be the first real data center application inside the city.