Rebuffing concerns raised by residents on both environmental and transparency grounds, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has approved the sale of 41.7 acres of county-owned land in Chantilly for development as a data center.
Without making any comments, the supervisors voted 9-0 on Tuesday (March 17) to sell part of the police department’s training facility at 3721 Stonecroft Blvd to Starwood Capital Group under the name SCG Capital Holdings LLC.
A dispute over ending a sales tax exemption on data centers stood in the way of the Virginia General Assembly passing a state budget passing before its regular session ended.
Over the past 18 years, Virginia became the world’s largest data hub, but community opposition to data centers has swelled. Most recently, in Fairfax County, environmental groups are questioning plans to sell part of a county-owned parcel at 3721 Stonecroft Blvd in Chantilly to data center developer Starwood Capital Group.
Data centers present both opportunities and challenges, and at a recent regional meeting, local leaders were urged to become acquainted with both, regardless of whether their jurisdictions are directly impacted.
“Don’t ever have a conversation of ‘all-good’ or ‘all-bad’ — there are a lot of nuances,” Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall said at a March 11 meeting of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG).
By OLIVIA DIAZ and MARC LEVY Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Nearly two decades ago, Virginia gave tech companies a tax break on equipment and software, and they began to build. The state became a data center hub, and they kept building. Residents bemoaned the noise while they built some more. Artificial intelligence boomed, and the power grid strained — still, more building.
A coalition of environmental advocacy organizations is asking Fairfax County officials for more information about the proposed sale of 42 acres in Chantilly to a data center developer.
County supervisors have set a March 17 public hearing to consider selling a portion of the county-owned parcel at 3721 Stonecroft Blvd where the Fairfax County Police Department has several training facilities.
Fairfax County’s police training academy could someday be co-located with a data center.
A developer identified as SCG Global Holdings LLC has offered to purchase county-owned land in Chantilly that currently hosts several Fairfax County Police Department facilities in order to build a data center.
Plans are solidifying for another data center facility in the Route 28 corridor just east of Dulles International Airport.
A Fairfax County planner affirmed this month that a proposed data center would be “suitable” for the former Word of Grace Christian Church property at 13832 Redskin Drive in Herndon, and that the facility would be “fully consistent” with local ordinances, according to a letter uploaded to the county’s land use database yesterday (Monday).
A split Fairfax County Planning Commission voted last night (Wednesday) to recommend requiring future electrical substations to be built at least 200 feet away from residential property lines.
The commission narrowly supported a 200-foot setback as one of four options on the table. County staff had recommended 100 feet, while some commissioners proposed 150 or 300 feet.
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.
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
RICHMOND—Bren Pointe residents in Fairfax County are closer to seeing steel transmission towers rise just outside their townhomes after Virginia’s regulators approved a new electricity line to serve a single planned commercial data center.
