Officials End Efforts To Build One Of World's Largest Data Center Clusters
After a yearslong rezoning and legal fight, officials in Prince William County, Virginia, have dealt a potentially fatal blow to an effort to build more than 22M SF of data centers next to a historic Civil War battlefield.
The Prince William County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution to drop the county's legal defense of the 2023 PW Digital Gateway rezoning effort after the Virginia Court of Appeals blocked the project March 31.
The board could have appealed the ruling to the Virginia Supreme Court, but data center opponents last week urged the county to give up the efforts to rezone more than 2,100 acres for the digital infrastructure facilities.
Blackstone-owned QTS and Compass Datacenters planned to develop 34 buildings totaling 22M SF and 1.7 gigawatts of capacity, which would have made it one of the world's largest data center clusters.
The legal dispute centered around a December 2023 public hearing at which more than 400 people testified for and against the data center rezoning. Opposition groups sued the county, claiming it failed to send out the required public notices for the meeting. A circuit court judge and the appeals court agreed.
The county had already spent about $1.7M to defend the rezoning, a county spokesperson told the Prince William Times. The supervisors, some of whom were elected after the 2023 rezoning passed and campaigned as less supportive of data centers than their predecessors, decided not to pursue any additional appeal.
Tuesday's vote effectively ends the use of county funds to defend the rezoning it had passed, but the developers planning to build on the site could still pursue their own appeal.
QTS and Compass have 30 days from the March 31 ruling to file an appeal with the Virginia Supreme Court, but they haven't said whether they plan to do so. QTS didn't immediately respond to Bisnow's request for comment. Compass declined to comment.
A county spokesperson declined to comment, saying the litigation is still technically active.
The groups that have fought to prevent the massive development and preserve the land around the historic Manassas National Battlefield Park celebrated the board's vote as a key victory. American Battlefield Trust President David Duncan said he "hopes this signals the end" to the development plans, but he vowed to continue the fight if the companies appeal.
"From the very beginning, this project only benefited a handful of out-of-state developers and special interests, at the expense of local residents and the historic battlefield," Duncan said in a statement. "Should the developers choose to continue this fight without the county's support, they will be met with the grit and determination we and our partners have shown throughout this years-long legal battle."
Data center development has already spread rapidly in Prince William County, which is home to more than 1.5 gigawatts of capacity, more than three times the size of the Silicon Valley market. Prince William has received spillover demand from neighboring Loudoun County due to power and land constraints in the longtime industry hub known as Data Center Alley.
But public opinion has turned sharply against data centers in Virginia, which has the largest concentration of server farms of any state. In a Washington Post-Schar School poll of Virginia voters conducted last month, 59% said they would be uncomfortable if a new data center were built in their community, up from 24% in a 2023 poll.
