A new data center is coming online in Chantilly.
Developer Penzance announced yesterday (Thursday) that it recently broke ground and secured $100 million in financing for Chantilly Premier, a three-story data center facility that will occupy approximately 12 acres of land adjacent to the Chantilly Auto Park south of Route 50.
The building is already fully leased, according to Penzance, reflecting the heightened demand for more digital storage space and data processing. In a press release, the developer also highlighted that Chantilly Premier’s location in the swath of Northern Virginia known as Data Center Alley will ensure “exceptional connectivity to fiber and power infrastructure.”
“Penzance is excited to break ground on this project, which will deliver critical digital infrastructure in the world’s largest and most important data center market,” Penzance Partner Cristopher White said in a statement. “We continue to advance our development pipeline and scale our platform in the data center industry, which reflects our commitment to the sector and the strength of this core data center market.”
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 8-1 in January 2024 to rezone the site at 4151 Auto Park Circle for industrial use, despite objections from area residents concerned about the development’s height and potential traffic, noise and environmental impacts.
Under the approved application, Penzance was permitted to build either a 150,000-square-foot warehouse or a 402,000-square-foot data center, with a maximum height of 55 feet for the warehouse or 110 feet for the data center.
The actual data center building will have approximately 236,000 square feet of floor space, according to a site plan approved by county staff. The development will include a parking lot with 52 spaces, including five accessible spots.
The financing came from QuadReal Property Group, a Vancouver, Canada-based company that invests in and develops residential, industrial and “alternative” properties. The alternatives category includes data centers, self-storage, student housing and manufactured homes, according to its website.
“This latest debt financing is in direct alignment with QuadReal’s investment strategy and our conviction in alternatives including data centers,” QuadReal Senior Vice President of U.S. Debt Investments Paul Stern said. “We are excited to partner with Penzance as they continue to scale their platform in key markets.”
Though Chantilly Premier is fully leased, a public relations representative for Penzance said they’re unable to identify the future users “at this time.”
Per the project website, Penzance anticipates that the building will be delivered in the first half of 2027.
Virginia is home to more data centers than anywhere else in the world, hosting 150 sites that take up 63 million square feet of land, a 2024 study commissioned by the state legislature found. The industry is mostly concentrated in Northern Virginia — particularly Loudoun, Prince William County and western Fairfax — where it accounts for 13% of the global data center capacity and 25% of the capacity in the Americas.
According to the study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), data centers have the economic benefits of generating jobs and local tax revenue, though the job creation mostly comes from the construction process, rather than the actual operations.
However, the power needed to sustain data centers, if the industry continues to grow, is projected to far outstrip what the state’s electrical grid can currently handle, the study found. The increased demand could affect the grid’s reliability and lead to higher bills for other users.
The study also noted that data centers typically rely on pollutant-emitting diesel generators for backup power, their water usage needs to be monitored, and localities have been slow to address noise and other issues affecting residential neighborhoods.
Fairfax County has more data centers within 500 feet of homes than anywhere else in the state, per the JLARC study, though the Board of Supervisors adopted tighter regulations in September 2024.
Data center opponents have been gaining momentum, successfully halting the Prince William Digital Gateway project and a site in Wisconsin just in the past few months. However, in Virginia, state-level attempts to more closely regulate the industry have made little headway.
Meanwhile, more data center projects continue to move forward. In addition to Chantilly Premier, data center CoreSite is gearing up to expand its facility in Reston, and Dominion Energy recently received key approvals for new electrical infrastructure to support planned data centers in the Dulles area and Lincolnia.
