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Jehovah’s Witnesses Bought a Data Center from Kyndryl Inc. But Will Not Say What It Plans to Do With the Facility
By Tina Traster
The Jehovah’s Witnesses, which have been expanding their footprint in the Hudson Valley over the past decade including the construction of a massive media center in Rockland County, purchased its first data center on Long Meadow Road in Warwick.
Kyndryl Inc., which spun off from IBM in 2021, sold the 68-acre Sterling Forest Business Resiliency Services Center for an undisclosed sum, to the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, the primary legal corporation, which says the “property will provide additional flexibility to support the growing global needs of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
The group says it uses “digital infrastructure” to host their proprietary internal databases, run the JWORG platform and manage worldwide operational communications.
The data center located in the Sterling Forest area of Warwick/Tuxedo Park, has a total power capacity of 8.75 MW, with an allocated IT load of 5.25 MW. It is connected to the Orange & Rockland Utilities power grid.
The property is located adjacent to the World Headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Warwick in Orange County. The 433,000 square foot Warwick property, transferred from IBM to Kyndryl in 2021, housed an under-utilized data center. The facility sits adjacent to Blue Lake (also known as Sterling Forest Lake).
Data centers are the subject of national debate because they consume large amounts of electricity and water to power artificial intelligence and cloud computing. While tech companies promise jobs and revenue, communities like Orangetown and Bergen County are pushing back over skyrocketing utility bills, environmental degradation, noise pollution, and strained local infrastructure.
There has not been any notable pushback on the purchase, though former witnesses on social media sites like Facebook and Reddit have said the databases are used to keep track of members and defectors.
Rockland County Business Journal sought to understand why specifically the group purchased a data center and how it will be used on a call.
Jehovah Witnesses spokesperson Jason Hohl wrote: “A recent opportunity arose to purchase a property in Orange County, New York, adjacent to our World Headquarters in Warwick. We are currently evaluating how the facility may best support our future operational needs and have not yet finalized specific plans for its use.”
It’s unclear why a religious order would purchase a data center without first evaluating why it needs one.
Kyndryl has been selling off some of its data centers, pivoting to a sale-leaseback strategy to monetize real estate while the demand for data centers continues to grow. In addition to the June 26 sale by Kyndryl to the Jehovah Witnesses, the company also sold its Swiss data center to NorthC in a leaseback arrangement.
Kyndryl did not respond to RCBJ’s email asking whether the Warwick sale was a leaseback deal.
JW relocated its headquarters to Warwick in 2016, after it sold its portfolio on waterfront warehouses in Brooklyn to a partnership consisting of the Kushner Companies (Jared Kushner’s former real estate company) and others for $340 million.
JW’s World Headquarters, at 1 Kings Drive in Warwick, is a 1.6 million square-foot campus on 253 acres with eight main buildings, including residence facilities, offices, and maintenance centers, acting as the global hub for their operations.
Meanwhile, Ramapo Town Supervisor Michael Specht said the religious order’s A/V Production Center on 155 Sterling Mine Road in Sloatsburg has its planning approvals and is under construction. The 1.5 million square-foot A/V production center is partially located in Tuxedo. The new facility, located two miles away from the Town of Warwick, will house nearly 1,000 volunteers.
The facilities include offices, maintenance and set production workshops, and a central chilled/hot water plant with geothermal heat recovery system. Accommodation for resident staff will include 645 residential units (545 one-bedroom and 100 studio units), dining/assembly spaces, recreation/wellness/fitness facilities, and a clinic.
In 2021, while the Jehovah’s Witnesses were still winding through the land-use approvals processes in Ramapo, the group bought a rental-housing complex on Route 17 to house its volunteers and contractors.
The society purchased the Woodmont Hills 384-unit rental complex from Woodmont Properties for an undisclosed sum and renamed it Woodgrove at Sterlington. At the time, the Order said it planned to occupy only seven of the 16 rental buildings in the complex. The rest were leased on the open market.
Woodmont Properties, a regional real estate developer based in Fairfield, NJ, began building Woodmont Hills, a luxury rental apartment complex, on a wooded parcel above Route 17 in 2019. The project, approved by the Town of Ramapo in 2014, took a long time to come to fruition because of opposition from Sloatsburg village residents who were concerned about traffic safety, among other issues. The property required additional work including widening Route 17 to allay traffic concerns; the developer had to replace an aging 60-inch water main that carries water to Sloatsburg village. The developer broke ground in May 2018, starting with the northern 34-acre portion of the 54-acre site.
But in 2025, tenants who’d lived in the complex since it opened, were forced to leave because the Jehovah’s Witnesses-owned property turned the entire 384-rental complex into housing for its volunteers. Tenants said they’ve seen the writing on the wall, saying the property management company has used arbitrary measures to raise rents, and that access to amenities that paying renters finance have been commandeered by the volunteers and contractors who live for free. The property has become increasingly transient, with lodgers living in apartments for brief periods of time.
When asked at that time why the Jehovah’s Witnesses had pivoted in their tenancy plan, spokesman Daniel Rice said, “We intended to retain seven buildings to support those involved in pre-construction planning and initial works on site. That allowed for leasing the remaining nine buildings for a period. We apologize for not communicating that clearly. We remain committed to assisting the tenants to make a smooth transition.”
