Amazon Plans $11B Data Center Push in Rural Virginia

Amazon is making good on its pledge earlier this year to invest $35B in new data centers in Virginia—by expanding its footprint into rural areas of the state that previously have been untouched by the burgeoning data processing sector.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has unveiled an $11B expansion into Louisa County, a sparsely populated county in the Central Piedmont region of Virginia. The county is a couple of hours south of Loudoun County, epicenter of the largest data center hub in North America.

An estimated 90% of the land in Louisa County is either undeveloped or used for agriculture and ranching.

The Louisa County Board of Supervisors put out the welcome mat for two new hyperscale data center campuses by creating a Technology Overlay District (TOD) in the county, a special zoning designation to attract tech sector development.

Amazon is planning to build two campuses in the TOD that will encompass 11 data centers. The smaller of the two campuses, called the Lake Anna Technology Campus (LATC), will occupy 150 acres at the corner of Kentucky Springs Road and Haley Drive adjacent to the North Anna Nuclear Power Station.

A much large campus, to be known as the North Creek Technology Campus (NCTC), will occupy 1,400 acres south of Route 33 across from the Northeast Creek Reservoir, according to a report in Engage Louisa.

Economic development officials estimate that, at full buildout, the campuses will generate $25M in local tax revenue annually. About two-thirds of that revenue will come from the county’s business personal property tax levied on equipment while one-third will come from real estate taxes.

The estimated $25M assessment is more than double the taxes paid by Dominion Energy last year for the North Anna Power Station, the county’s largest taxpayer.

Amazon has pledged to make the $11B investment in Louisa County by 2040. Work on the LATC project is expected to begin first, with operations beginning as early as 2025.

Virginia’s General Assembly has passed a special $140M grant fund for the AWS expansion that will be allocated on a proportional basis to localities where the company invests.

The grant money, earmarked for infrastructure and workforce development, was structured to spur data center development in rural areas of the state that currently lack the infrastructure to support them.

In November, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors approved an adjustment of the county’s land use mater plan to permit rezoning of a large swath of farmland and protected forest known as the Rural Crescent, which stretches from the Civil War battlefield at Manassas to Route 234.

A 2,139-acre 28M SF data center campus known as Prince William Digital Gateway is planned for the site.