Virginia’s newest high profile data center story is no longer the announcement of the next generation AI data center campus, it is now how the state is beginning to set the trend for legislative process to protect its communities while still encouraging the data center industry development.
On August 3, state Senators Richard Stuart, a Republican, and Russet Perry, a Democrat, called on Gov. Abigail Spanberger to convene a special legislative session to address groundwater strain. Their request followed a state study warning that eastern Virginia’s groundwater supply is constrained and that large new industrial withdrawals may be difficult to sustain. The debate has expanded into calls for a broader pause: Senator Glen Sturtevant has asked for an immediate statewide moratorium on new data center development, while Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas has said such a moratorium deserves serious consideration.
Those proposals are not yet law, but they are the clearest indication that Virginia’s policy discussion has moved beyond incremental regulation. The Commonwealth spent years treating data centers primarily as an economic-development and tax-base success. It is now evaluating them simultaneously as power, water, land-use, air-quality and ratepayer issues. That shift is especially important for projects outside Northern Virginia, where developers are increasingly pursuing large sites in communities with less experience reviewing hyperscale infrastructure.
The calls for a special session arrive only weeks after a significant package of data center laws and budget provisions took effect July 1. Virginia’s new budget established what the administration describes as a first-of-its-kind electricity consumption tax on data centers. The charge is 1.1 cents per kilowatt-hour, began July 1 and is capped at $600 million in annual collections, with excess revenue refunded to data center taxpayers. The compromise preserved Virginia’s sales-and-use-tax exemption for qualifying data center equipment, avoiding the abrupt repeal sought by some legislators, but added a substantial operating-cost consideration tied directly to power consumption.
Other new bills and resolutions reach into project design and local review. HB507 requires future data center projects to use Tier 4 or equivalent backup generators. HB153 and SB94 require proposed facilities to assess expected noise before local approval. HB1191 and SB377 permit high-load customers, including data centers, to invest in new energy infrastructure while establishing protections intended to prevent those investments from shifting costs to other ratepayers. HB284 and SB371 require Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power to develop voluntary demand-flexibility programs for high-demand customers.
The administration has also taken the ratepayer question to the Virginia State Corporation Commission. In a July filing, Spanberger’s chief energy officer urged regulators to assign the cost of transmission projects to data centers when those projects would not have been built “but for” the large new load. General Assembly members subsequently backed that position. Together, the tax, generator requirement, noise studies, demand-flexibility measures and transmission-cost proceeding create a materially different development environment: Virginia remains open to new capacity, but developers increasingly must demonstrate that their projects will not externalize power, environmental or community costs.
Yondr and Cerberus Commit to a 72MW Manassas Campus
Against that changing policy background, Yondr Group and Cerberus Capital Management acquired a 40-acre site in Manassas for a planned 72MW data center campus. The project is expected to enter service in 2029 and is being positioned for hyperscale cloud, enterprise and artificial-intelligence workloads. The announcement describes the site as part of Yondr’s continuing North American expansion and emphasizes Northern Virginia’s fiber density, cloud presence and proximity to major northeastern markets.
The most consequential phrase in the announcement may be “near-term power availability.” Cerberus said the project combines a 2029 ready-for-service date with power availability in a historically constrained market. That claim directly addresses the risk now dominating Northern Virginia development: Land and zoning are valuable, but a project without a credible power-delivery schedule is not truly development-ready
The 72MW scale is also notable. It is large enough to support a meaningful hyperscale deployment but far smaller than the multi-gigawatt concepts generating the greatest political resistance. The project’s 40-acre footprint and 2029 delivery target suggest a more conventional, financeable campus strategy: secure entitled land and power, build around a defined capacity envelope and avoid depending on a sweeping regional rezoning.
AWS Tests the Limits of Loudoun’s Grandfathered Zoning
Amazon Web Services surfaced a much larger and more politically contentious Northern Virginia plan at the end of July. Plans filed with Loudoun County describe the Bridgefield Tech Center, a four-building, 800,000-square-foot campus on the former George Washington University Virginia Science and Technology Campus in Ashburn. Amazon acquired the 122-acre property for $427 million earlier in 2026 and is seeking by-right approval for four two-story data center buildings.
The application illustrates the importance of legacy entitlements. Loudoun County has removed data centers as a by-right use in most circumstances, but some parcels retain grandfathered zoning. The AWS submission had not yet been formally accepted for review when details emerged, and Supervisor Juli Briskman said she would challenge the proposal, arguing that redevelopment of the university property should receive broader public review. Under the sale agreement, George Washington University may remain on the site for as long as five years while relocating programs and research operations.
Bridgefield is a test of whether older zoning rights can continue delivering major data center projects after Loudoun’s political consensus has shifted. For developers and landowners, the answer will influence the value of every remaining by-right or fully entitled parcel in the county.
Petersburg Emerges With Four Projects Outside the Rezoning Spotlight
Petersburg, VA, where details emerged about four data center projects that don’t require rezoning because the city currently treats data centers as a by-right use in light- and heavy-industrial districts.
NuVu is planning a three-building campus between Interstate 95 and County Drive, with investment potentially reaching $1.1 billion. The company said the campus would connect to Dominion Energy through a new substation, use clean energy and employ a closed-loop water system. Menlo Digital is planning a four-building campus on 74 acres at 2255 Jamestown Drive. At full buildout, the site is expected to support 104MW through a planned 300MW substation. Wagner Properties is pursuing a project at 1161 Wagner Road, while Warrenton Group is planning a six-building campus on 175 acres at 2233 Halifax Road.
Petersburg’s pipeline demonstrates both the opportunity and the policy risk of by-right development. The city can attract investment without the long rezoning battles seen in Northern Virginia, which improves speed to market. At the same time, the absence of project-specific rezoning hearings can produce a transparency backlash once residents learn the scale of multiple approved campuses.
Crusoe Linked to a 50MW-to-100MW Franklin County Project
In Franklin County, newly disclosed discussions point to another possible expansion of Virginia’s data center map. “Project Flash” is being considered for the county-owned Summit View Business Park south of Roanoke. Early information indicates a 50MW-to-100MW facility on approximately 150 acres, and reporting links the prospective developer to Crusoe, the AI infrastructure and cloud company.
The project remains preliminary. County officials have acknowledged questions about economic-development prospects but have not formally confirmed the developer or announced an agreement.. If it advances, the project would reinforce southwest Virginia’s emergence as a secondary market following Google’s investment in Botetourt County.
Hopewell Considers Adaptive Reuse for a 20MW Facility
A smaller project under study in Hopewell offers a different development model. Volterra Advisors has evaluated converting the former Green Plains ethanol plant at 701 South Sixth Avenue into a data center. Preliminary concepts call for approximately 20MW in a 50,000-to-70,000-square-foot facility.
The proposal is early-stage and lacks a final development commitment, but the site illustrates the appeal of industrial reuse. Volterra has specifically cited the potential to reuse natural-gas infrastructure. For Virginia communities seeking investment without opening hundreds of rural acres to greenfield construction, such sites could become increasingly valuable.
Entitled Northern Virginia Land Commands a Premium
The scarcity of development-ready land was underscored by TA Realty’s acquisition of 9.82 acres at 45564 Thayer Road in Sterling. An affiliate paid $60 million, or approximately $6.1 million per acre, for a parcel approved for a two-story data center. The site’s by-right status is particularly valuable after Loudoun eliminated by-right data center development across much of the county.
The transaction provides a useful counterpoint to the industry’s move into Petersburg, Franklin County and Hopewell. Secondary markets may offer larger and less expensive sites, but Northern Virginia still commands extraordinary prices where power, fiber, zoning and customer proximity have already been assembled.
Local Resistance Becomes a Development Constraint
Not every July announcement moved a project forward. Prince William County supervisors unanimously rejected the initial comprehensive-plan change for the Dulles South Innovation Center, a proposal covering roughly 1,930 acres with as much as 43 million square feet of development. County planners cited infrastructure, environmental, agricultural and compatibility concerns, while supervisors argued that the project was too large and conflicted with the county’s existing land-use plan.
The vote came days after QTS abandoned its remaining legal effort to revive the Prince William Digital Gateway, a proposed 2,100-acre campus near Manassas National Battlefield Park. The back-to-back outcomes reinforced Prince William County’s retreat from enormous rural campus proposals, even as smaller and more conventionally sited data centers continue to advance elsewhere in the Manassas market.
These local actions are not statewide legislation, yet they may shape near-term development more directly than Richmond.
Growth Continues, but the Definition of a Viable Site Is Changing
The most important conclusion from Virginia’s last month of announcements is not that development is stopping. It is that viability now depends on a broader set of conditions. Yondr and Cerberus are proceeding in Manassas because they say they have a credible route to power and a defined 2029 delivery. AWS is relying on legacy entitlements in Ashburn. Petersburg is leveraging by-right industrial zoning. Franklin County is marketing a publicly controlled business park with energy infrastructure. Hopewell is exploring adaptive reuse. TA Realty is paying a premium for an approved Sterling site.
Demand remains formidable. Dominion Energy reported in early August that it had added more than 5GW of contracted data center load to its pipeline since the end of 2025, an increase of about 11 percent. The utility’s announcement illustrates the enormous gap between continued customer demand and the political, environmental and infrastructure questions surrounding individual projects.
The legislative and local-government signals are equally strong. Developers will face new electricity taxes, cleaner generator requirements, noise studies, potential demand-response obligations, transmission-cost scrutiny and intensifying questions about groundwater. The July release of Virginia’s groundwater study is particularly significant for eastern and coastal communities: It concluded that the region is unlikely to offer a reliable, sufficient groundwater supply for a new data center using evaporative cooling or another comparably intensive industrial process.
Virginia is therefore entering a new phase of data center development. The Commonwealth is still the industry’s most important U.S. market, and the latest projects show that capital continues to pursue capacity across the state.
The successful Virginia campus of the late 2020s will need demonstrable power availability, water-conscious cooling, defensible community siting, modern backup generation and a financial structure capable of carrying more infrastructure costs directly. The opportunity remains enormous, but so does the burden of proving that each new project belongs where it is proposed.
