Amazon, others seek approvals from county
By Nolan Stout 4 hrs ago 1
Three companies are proposing more than 2.3 million square feet of new data centers in Prince William County, along with a potential upgrade to an existing facility.
Amazon Data Services Inc. and QTS Realty Trust Inc. are seeking county approval to build bigger and taller data centers than already allowed on their properties, and J.K. Land Holdings LLC wants to upgrade or replace an existing data center, potentially building a taller facility.
All the proposals are in the county’s Data Center Opportunity Zone overlay district, designated in 2016 to target the industry’s growth.
The proposals highlight an industry pivoting from Loudoun County to Prince William, which is on track to dethrone its northern neighbor as the data center capital of the world.
Since 2002, the industry has constructed 5.3 million square feet in Prince William, according to a recent county-commissioned report. Another 8 million to 10 million square feet is “in the development pipeline,” the report says.
Once all expected construction finishes, Prince William County will be at more than 15 million square feet and knocking on the door of Loudoun County, which leads the global market with 26 million square feet of data centers and another 4 million in development.
Prince William County supervisors also recently approved guidelines for the controversial PW Digital Gateway project, allowing up to 27 million square feet of data centers on 2,100 acres along Pageland Lane in the county’s western end. Although the developers have proposed only 18.42 million square feet there so far, the project would help Prince William overtake Loudoun.
Amazon’s applications note that development has focused on Loudoun over the past decade, but a new player is affecting the market.
“More recently … Prince William County has become an attractive data center location in the region, and the County stands to obtain substantial benefits from encouraging data center development as a targeted industry for economic development,” the company said. “As evidenced by other data center proposals, this area of Prince William County is increasingly in high demand for the development of data centers to serve changes brought by the modern, technology-driven economy.”
No public meetings have been scheduled on the four applications, which require approval by the Board of County Supervisors.
Amazon’s proposal
Amazon has submitted two special-use permit requests for a roughly 2.2-million-square-foot data center development on about 117 acres at 5845 and 5945 Wellington Road.
The requests, submitted in September and November, are on separate 58.5-acre parcels zoned for industrial use. The existing zoning allows data centers, but Amazon needs the permits to increase building height restrictions on four of the six proposed structures.
Existing zoning caps buildings at 75 feet; Amazon wants to construct some at 100 feet.
The company bought the properties for a total of $140.2 million in April 2021 and April 2022.
Amazon is proposing two three-story buildings at 100 feet tall with 435,000 square feet each, two three-story buildings at 100 feet tall with 375,000 square feet each and two two-story buildings at 75 feet tall and 268,000 square feet each.
The company also plans to build two electrical substations of 4.5 and 5 acres.
QTS’ plans
QTS, one of the companies developing the PW Digital Gateway, wants to increase density guidelines for about 20 undeveloped acres near Manassas.
QTS bought the property, at 10680 University Blvd. adjacent to its existing data center, for $5 million in 2018. It was zoned as planned business district in 2002 to allow a hotel, restaurant, retail and other uses up to 172,795 square feet.
The application, submitted Sept. 27, seeks to remove all other allowed uses and allow up to 323,526 square feet of data centers.
J.K. Land Holdings in Manassas
The third project is on about 17.73 acres zoned planned business district at 11101 University Blvd. near the intersection of Innovation Drive and University Boulevard.
University Blvd LLC, an affiliated company of Sterling-based J.K. Land Holdings, bought the land from Comcast for $10.3 million in November 2021.
The property is home to an existing 108,000-square-foot, 25-foot tall data center.
The maximum building height allowed on the property is 70 feet, but the company wants to increase that to 100 feet.
The company says that it plans to upgrade the existing data center, which was built in 2000, or redevelop the property with a new one.
The application, submitted Sept. 6, notes that the property is across the street from the planned Innovation Town Center. The development by Castle Rock Partners LLC and Stanley Martin Homes LLC is planned to bring nearly 3,000 homes and more than 2 million square feet of commercial space to the area.
This isn’t the first request to increase already-allowed building heights from J.K. Land Holdings. The company also submitted an application in July to increase the height of a project in Gainesville from 75 to 80 feet.
Nolan Stout covers Prince William County. Reach him at nstout@insidenova.com or @TheNolanStout on Facebook and Twitter.