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The Mid-County Industrial Park is one of two large areas in the mid-county seeking county approval for 80-foot-tall data centers. It would encompass 64 acres and include the Colchester Industrial Park as well as surrounding acreage between Minnieville Road and the Prince William County Landfill.
Potomac Reserve is a development of large, newer homes off of Minnieville Road. The Mid-County Industrial Park would back to homes on John Mallard Drive within the neighborhood.
Prince William County is poised to add yet another “data center alley” to its already burgeoning tech industry — this time in the mid-county area.
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors moved Tuesday, March 19 to allow85-foot data centers on 90 acres known as Parson’s Farm, a former landscaping outlet along Dumfries Road.
In April, the planning commission will hear another application to add at least three more 80-foot-tall data centers at Colchester Industrial Park and surrounding properties about three miles south on Dumfries Road. Part of the property would need to be rezoned, which would require approval by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.
The latter project, dubbed the “Mid-County Industrial Park,” was unveiled Thursday, March 21 by Corey Stewart, the former chair of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, who is the lawyer representing the landowners in their rezoning application.
UPDATED: Although he waited until this week to make it official, Corey Stewart said he decid…
The project is proposed for 64 acres northeast of Minnieville and Dumfries Roads near the county’s landfill. It would encompass The Colchester Industrial Park to the west and would stretch east toward the back of Potomac Reserve, a newer development of large, million-dollar homes off Minnieville Road.
“If this data center is approved and built, it will become the easternmost data center in the county,” said Stewart, a Republican who served as the board’s at-large chairman from 2007 to 2019.
With the recently approved Parsons Business Park just to its west — and the proposed “Potomac Technology Park” on the other side of Dumfries Road just north of Prince William Forest Park — it could anchor a new mid-county data center corridor.
Stewart said his client, Minnieville Capital Acquisitions LLC, chose this site because it is in the county’s “data center opportunity zone overlay district,” a swath of 10,000 acres created by county officials back in 2016 to encourage data center development. The property is also partly zoned industrial and high-power transmission lines cut through it.
“There's only a handful of homes that are actually bordering it,” Stewart said.
The proposed site consists of a 41-acre forested parcel on the east and the 23-acre Colchester Industrial Park to the east, which is mostly paved and home to GDC Construction as well as multiple lots with parked cars, tractor-trailer trucks and construction materials.
“Every way you can look at (the project), it’s an improvement, compared to what’s already there,” Stewart said.
Stewart noted that there is “an existing environmental issue on this site” that will have to be cleaned up, but he did not offer details.
The plan Stewart unveiled showed three data center buildings, a power substation, roads, pads for generators, parking lots and a stormwater holding pond. Of the data center buildings, two would front Dumfries Road while one would be set to the rear.
Stewart said the plan had been adjusted to avoid placing the data centers too close to six homes on John Mallard Drive within the Potomac Reserve neighborhood. The latest version shows one of the data centers moved further to the west and replaced by a power substation, which Stewart said would be less bothersome to the homes that back to the property. Stewart said he did not know the height of substation equipment but that it would be quiet and that the homes’ view of it would be buffered by some of the existing forest and at least 50 feet of planted trees.
“The old data centers that first came into the county were just, frankly, really, really ugly,” Stewart said. “And you know, this is not going to be a work of art here, but these are designed to look much more like office buildings.”
The property is inside an isolated portion of the Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District. To the north, the zone appears on a map as an irregularly shaped blob west of Manassas. To the south of the zone, the supervisors added six islands where data centers also could be located. The site is in one of them.
Inside the zone, data centers have an easy path to development. In this case, the 23-acre part of the property is zoned industrial, but the 41-acre part is zoned agricultural, so the owner wants to change that to light industrial. According to Stewart, the application will be heard by the county planning commission on April 24 and the board of supervisors on June 4.
Stewart was peppered with questions from Mid-County Civic Association members.
Ashley McWilliam, who lives about two miles north of the site, was concerned about building heights and proposed tree buffers. She argued the 50-foot tree buffer between the homes in Potomac Reserve and the substation was inadequate. She pointed out that the supervisors had just approved 100-foot buffers at the Parsons Business Park to the north.
During their first data center decision under new Board of Supervisors Chair Deshundra Jeffe…
“Just want to point out the data centers don't actually have to be as big as possible.,” she said. “They could be shortened by 50 feet and still be massively profitable.”
Stewart said that the buffering of the project was 50 feet in just one spot, and that behind other houses the old forest would be retained up to 150 feet deep. But he said that the planted buffers along Dumfries Road were only 20 feet.
“I'd like to say this is the most beautiful part of the county here on (Va. 234, but it is next to the landfill),” he said.
“And it’s also across from the forest,” McWilliam said, referring to the 15,000-acre Prince William Forest Park.
Prince William County is on track to become the new data center capital of the world, surpassing the current capital, Loudoun County, to the north.
In response to other questions about noise and efficiency, Stewart said, “We're on the cusp of becoming the biggest data center locality in the world. And the latest and greatest technologies are being used here, including in this development.”
But the association’s vice president Delton Nichols demurred.
“I'm not sure that saying that is endearing to a lot of the citizens,” he said. “And particularly in a time for some of the other counties that have been saturated with data centers. They are beginning to have a different view.”
Mid-County residents still smarting from being sandbagged on the Parsons Business Park betrayal have another developer’s dream to look forward to with the proposed Mid-County Industrial Park.
Planning Office documents on the PWC website note:
* This is an expedited review targeted for PC Public Hearing on April 24, 2024.
* As currently requested, a height modification is being requested up to a maximum building height of up 80 feet, which is to accommodate data center buildings. This does not include any rooftop mechanical equipment and rooftop screening walls. While other recently approved data center proposals have specifically proffered that such rooftop equipment is inclusive of this overall height cap, this application does not.
Expedited for whose benefit? Expedited when common sense dictates slowing down and more carefully debating why yet another waiver to data center overlay guidelines should be allowed, just when appetite suppressant is most needed.
The article states:
“With the recently approved Parsons Business Park just to its west — and the proposed “Potomac Technology Park” on the other side of Dumfries Road just north of Prince William Forest Park — it could anchor a new mid-county data center corridor.”
Now mid and eastern county residents, who watched with detached concern while western Prince William was turned into a science fiction movie, will have a front row seat to their own horror show.
When will the relentless plundering of our county end?
Yes, here we go again. Wawright/EagleView, fighting for the most dishonest person in PWC title! For over two years, all he has done is whine and cry that data centers should be built in the data center overlay. The Board approves a data center next to the garbage dump and here Bill is having another emotional breakdown. Bill cried about newly elected officials being able to vote on data centers centers, and they do, and he cries again. He is so out-of-touch with residents of this county, which shouldn't be a surprise, given he was happy to financially support the destruction of the rural crescent by buying his house in the gated country club that excludes the entire county residents. This shouldnt be a surprise since he isnt even from PWC, and doesnt care about us having world-class schools and enjoying an economic windfall. He just wants to keep the status quo because in Bills world, the world revolves around Bill.
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(2) comments
Here we go again.
Mid-County residents still smarting from being sandbagged on the Parsons Business Park betrayal have another developer’s dream to look forward to with the proposed Mid-County Industrial Park.
Planning Office documents on the PWC website note:
* This is an expedited review targeted for PC Public Hearing on April 24, 2024.
* As currently requested, a height modification is being requested up to a maximum building height of up 80 feet, which is to accommodate data center buildings. This does not include any rooftop mechanical equipment and rooftop screening walls. While other recently approved data center proposals have specifically proffered that such rooftop equipment is inclusive of this overall height cap, this application does not.
Expedited for whose benefit? Expedited when common sense dictates slowing down and more carefully debating why yet another waiver to data center overlay guidelines should be allowed, just when appetite suppressant is most needed.
The article states:
“With the recently approved Parsons Business Park just to its west — and the proposed “Potomac Technology Park” on the other side of Dumfries Road just north of Prince William Forest Park — it could anchor a new mid-county data center corridor.”
Now mid and eastern county residents, who watched with detached concern while western Prince William was turned into a science fiction movie, will have a front row seat to their own horror show.
When will the relentless plundering of our county end?
Yes, here we go again. Wawright/EagleView, fighting for the most dishonest person in PWC title! For over two years, all he has done is whine and cry that data centers should be built in the data center overlay. The Board approves a data center next to the garbage dump and here Bill is having another emotional breakdown. Bill cried about newly elected officials being able to vote on data centers centers, and they do, and he cries again. He is so out-of-touch with residents of this county, which shouldn't be a surprise, given he was happy to financially support the destruction of the rural crescent by buying his house in the gated country club that excludes the entire county residents. This shouldnt be a surprise since he isnt even from PWC, and doesnt care about us having world-class schools and enjoying an economic windfall. He just wants to keep the status quo because in Bills world, the world revolves around Bill.
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Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.