Construction is underway on the first two data center campuses in the Fredericksburg region with far more activity expected in the years to come.
For now, most of the local data center construction activity is clustered in two places:
- The area east of U.S. Route 1 and south of Hospital Center Boulevard in Stafford County. A 510,000-square-foot data center campus is under construction off Old Potomac Church Road not far from the Abberly Waterstone Apartment Homes complex. Just south of there, a data center campus that could have as much as 5.8 million square feet of building space is planned, following a successful rezoning outcome in September.
- The area east of Interstate 95 and south of U.S. Route 17 in Spotsylvania County. A data center campus is under construction off Cosner Drive, and significant additional activity is in the works along Massaponax Church Road and Summit Crossing Road. Another major campus (a project called Mattameade Tech Campus) is planned for a property just south of Mudd Tavern Road that straddles the Caroline County/Spotsylvania line.
The clustering of data center campuses in the region is no coincidence, according to an interview with Fredericksburg Regional Alliance President Curry Roberts and Hirschler attorney Charlie Payne, who has represented many data center projects through the locality entitlement process.
This data center campus is located on Cosner Drive in Spotsylvania County.
The clusters are located along major transmission lines, which will facilitate the large power needs of the campuses. They are in areas without significant residential density and with enough available acreage to develop numerous data center buildings, electrical substations and other required features. Proximity to one another also allows for the sharing of non-potable-water distribution lines — currently in development — that can be used to cool the facilities (these systems are known as “purple pipes”).
Roberts and Payne said significant additional local data center activity is likely in coming years, including on the west side of U.S. 1 and Interstate 95 if transmission-line extensions are built. There is significant interest in data center campuses along Centreport Parkway in Stafford, as well as in areas near Massaponax High School in Spotsylvania.
Payne and Roberts said there could be as much as 50 million square feet of data centers in the Fredericksburg region within a decade, bringing significant tax revenue to the host localities. Roberts said studies have shown that for every 1 million square feet of data centers built, about $19 million in local tax revenue is generated annually (mainly via personal property taxes on data center equipment). This means data centers are likely to be one of the largest local tax-revenue sources in the coming years, if not the largest.
They also will likely be one of the highest users of electrical power.
For now, most of the local data center activity is in Caroline, Stafford and Spotsylvania. A project near the former Birchwood Power Facility in King George County is currently stalled. The City of Fredericksburg is studying the feasibility of data centers on the Hylton (on the northeast corner of State Route 3 and Interstate 95) and Celebrate Virginia South (the vacant land off Gordon W. Shelton Boulevard) properties.
The local data center activity is a decade in the making, Roberts and Payne said. Demand for data centers has boomed amid the shift to cloud computing and increasingly the massive computing needs of artificial intelligence.
Northern Virginia is the data center capital of the world, but it’s gotten increasingly difficult to find enough space in localities such as Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties — which has led data center operators to look beyond to regions such as Fauquier, Louisa, Culpeper and Fredericksburg. Regional and local economic development officials started to meet with data center operators in the late 2010s. Caroline, King George, Stafford, Spotsylvania and Fredericksburg all agreed to set the same personal property tax rate on data center equipment to create a level playing field.
Many of the local projects are spearheaded by Amazon Web Services, although other data center operators are also in the market, Roberts and Payne said. Roberts said the local data centers are going to need more trade workers (electricians, cyber-security specialists, pipe-fitters, HVAC technicians, mechanics, etc.) than the region currently has. He said Germanna Community College is working to develop employee training programs specific to the industry’s needs.
Bill Freehling covers local business for the Fredericksburg Free Press. He can be reached at: [email protected].
Editor’s note: Hirschler Fleischer is a major donor to the Free Press. Donors do not influence newsroom operations.
