Less than a month ago, Fredericksburg Mayor Kerry Devine signaled an openness to exploring a potential data center in Celebrate Virginia South.
However, it appears that the city’s first serious, server-laden suitor wishes to put down fiberoptic roots in a different location — 83.5 acres straddling the Cowan Boulevard corridor near Interstate 95.
On Thursday morning, city staff from several different departments will consider a pre-application from southern Maryland-based developer Penzance to construct a data center campus on four parcels that were once under consideration for a Veteran’s Affairs clinic.
“This is a definite interest in doing a data center project there,” said attorney Charlie Payne, who will represent Penzance in front of the city’s Technical Review Committee (TRC).
Payne said that while the size and scope of the project have not yet been finalized at this point in the process, the draft to be presented at TRC points to a roughly 1.1 million-square-foot campus.
The project would require a rezoning from Planned Development-Medical Center (PDMC) to Industrial-2 (I-2), which is the classification required for data centers and related infrastructure. Payne said that other potential obstacles for the project include a planned four-lane parkway — known as the Gateway Boulevard extension — that would run through the property.
On July 25, Fredericksburg-area residents flooded a meeting to discuss the environmental impact of data centers.
The informational gathering, hosted by the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, ended early and abruptly when personnel from the fire department deemed that the meeting room in the downtown branch of the Rappahannock Regional Library had exceeded legal capacity.
Before that happened, however, residents and environmental activists raised concerns ranging from the noise generated by the facilities to the vast amounts of water and electricity needed to operate them.
Payne said that the Penzance project would not require water intake from the Rappahannock River and would instead purchase its water from the city’s utility system. For cooling, it could utilize a water reuse system, a closed loop system, air cooling or some combination, he added.
“Knowing the city, they’re going to be very diligent in how that process plays out,” Payne said.
In an email, Mike Craig, the city’s principal planner, told the Free Press that city planning and economic development staff visited a data center in Chantilly in February “to take a look at the most recent operational and site planning aspects of newly built data centers.” Craig also noted that City Council first adopted rules on data centers back in October 2018.
Payne noted that data centers can generate between $12 million and $17 million in gross tax revenue annually per million square feet. Fredericksburg’s personal property tax rate for computer equipment and peripherals is $1.25 per $100 of assessed value and works on a depreciation scale that peaks at five years.
Payne, who has facilitated the approval of more than 20 million square feet of data centers in five jurisdictions, said that it typically takes 60 days to submit a rezoning application following TRC review. The public process that follows can take anywhere from six to eight months.
“This is how it all begins,” he said.
Charlie Payne, a person central to this article, is an attorney for Hirschler Fleischer, a major donor to the Free Press.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that the proposed data center campus will cover approximately 1.1 million square feet.
