A Northern Virginia company looking to develop a 500-acre data center campus near the Navy base in Dahlgren is seeking community feedback on the project before the zoning case even hits the county.
Based in Chantilly, Potomac Development Group will hold an informational session about the “Dahlgren West” project on Wednesday from 6-8 p.m. in the auditorium of the Dahlgren campus of the University of Mary Washington.
The developer is working with the family of the late Ed Veazey to get the needed zoning, prepare the site and then turn it over to one or more end-users, said Nick Over, one of the company’s principals. Currently, the property is a mix of commercial, industrial and residential zoning.
“I want to stress, it’s early in the process,” Over said on Friday, “and we really want to listen to the community and take that feedback and perfect our application before we bring it to the county.”
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The land is off U.S. 301 and part of the Cleydael settlement area. Last year, the King George Board of Supervisors established parts of the Cleydael area as a technology zone, which means new and existing businesses there are eligible for incentives if they meet certain criteria.
Because things are so early in the game, Over said the company has a conceptual layout, which it will present on Wednesday. But there aren’t concrete plans for how many buildings would be on the property, if the Board of Supervisors approves the industrial zoning needed.
However, Over’s early estimates call for about 9 million square feet of buildings, spread out across 10 to 15 structures. If the zoning approval came from King George this year, he hopes site work could begin next year.
The data centers that end up being part of the campus probably would be cooled by air conditioning, not water, Over said. The only water the project would need would be for drinking, flushing toilets and water suppression. There is county water on the site but now sewer.
Veazey, a Naval Academy graduate who served in the Navy for 23 years then worked as an entrepreneur and inventor later in life, for years pursued opportunities to have the property developed. He often touted its proximity to Naval Support Facility Dahlgren and the UMW campus as well its heavy infrastructure. The site includes a 200,000-gallon water tank and 12-inch water main, cell tower and 230,000 volt transmission line.
The property also is heavily wooded, and Over said the land’s natural contours will remain as part of the open space. The company also plans a 300-foot buffer between the project and U.S. 301.
Potomac Development officials said they’re reluctant to tout revenue projections for the site, given the early stage of the project. During a celebration last month at Germanna Community College, Gov. Glenn Youngkin hailed the number of Amazon Web Service projects in the Fredericksburg region and their ripple effect, both with jobs for individuals and tax revenues for localities.
“For every dollar that a county invests, there’s $13 that comes back to them from this ecosystem,” Youngkin said. “So this is truly an engine of economic opportunity, which is why Virginia is so proud to be the international center of data center activity.”
The event with the governor and Amazon representatives included officials from Caroline, Louisa, Spotsylvania and Stafford counties, but no current Board of Supervisors from King George. That’s because new board members, who took office in January, voted to cancel the performance agreement with Amazon that had been approved a month earlier by the previous board.
In early September, King George actually was the first county in the immediate Fredericksburg region to approve rezonings for a massive data center complex operated by Amazon.
The previous board had amended the county’s Comprehensive Plan, rezoned farmland for industrial use and approved other special exceptions to make way for the 869-acre complex in the Sealston area. The proposal includes 19 data centers and accessory buildings that total 7.25 million square feet of space.
After scrapping the performance agreement, current members of the Board of Supervisors said earlier in the year they were open to renegotiating with Amazon on the Sealston site.
But their tone during a mid-March meeting said otherwise.
For almost 17 minutes, Supervisor Bill Davis ranted, often shouting into the microphone as he cited reports of taxpayers in the state of Georgia and nearby Loudoun County having to pay for the additional infrastructure needed by Amazon centers.
“Is Loudoun not close enough to us that we can’t compare Loudoun to King George?” he asked, clearly irritated. “After all, they’re a big city, we’re just a bunch of country bumpkins down here.”
Then, he mentioned the possibility of power companies taking land, by eminent domain, for new electrical facilities and the outrage that would generate.
“Let’s wait five, 10 years down the line when this room is filled with King George residents, pissed off because some power-hungry, multibillion-dollar bully is stealing their frickin’ land,” he said, sarcastically adding that it’s all in the name of progress.
Supervisor Chair T.C. Collins joined fellow board members on the Amazon-bashing bandwagon, saying he knows “we’re getting ready to go to war here. I’m not afraid of you.”
He made some religious references, aligning Amazon with the devil and proclaiming that he had divine protection.
“A lot of people are trying to make my life miserable, but that can’t happen because I have the Lord on my side and He will protect me,” Collins said. “He will protect every board member up here.”
Supervisor Cathy Binder said she was still hoping for an honest answer about how much King George would get out of the Amazon deal and that the two parties could come back to the table.
Supervisor David Sullins spoke in the calmest tone, telling audience members not to worry that “we are messing things up with Amazon (because) we’ve got a lot of opportunities.”
He mentioned three companies are talking about data centers in the county — and the Dahlgren West project would be one of them — and another developer is interested in solar farming.
More information about the Dahlgren West project and informational session is available online at dahlgrenwest.com or at outreach@dahlgrenwest.com.