Planners Call For Rejection Of Mixed-Use Data Center Development Near Loudoun County Metro Station

Loudoun County may be the data center capital of the world, but planning officials there are opposing a mix of data centers and residential units slated for a site near Dulles International Airport.

County planning staff recommended the denial of zoning changes needed for Innovation Gateway, a development proposed by a joint venture between San Diego-based Fairfield Residential and D.C.'s The BlackChamber Group that would see a pair of data centers and a large multifamily housing complex built on 30 vacant acres east of Route 28.

In a memorandum filed ahead of a Tuesday Planning Commission hearing on the project, officials call the inclusion of data centers on the site “wholly inconsistent” with the county’s vision for the area as a transit-oriented, mixed-use district. 

First proposed in May 2022, plans for Innovation Gateway include a pair of data centers totaling 700K SF alongside a multifamily building with as many as 425 units. The site would also include 40K SF of office space to support the data centers. Developers haven't ruled out the possibility that an electrical substation could also be built on the site, although that would need to go through a separate rezoning process. 

But plans for Innovation Gateway have run headlong into the county’s goal of steering development away from data centers in the area around its new Metro stations. The property is about a mile from the Innovation Center station, part of the Silver Line Phase 2 extension that opened last year. 

The site sits in a district that the county’s most recent land use master plan explicitly targets for transit-oriented development projects with residential, commercial and office uses. It is close to high-profile mixed-use projects like Waterside and Rivana at Innovation Station.

While the developers behind Innovation Gateway designed the data centers to look like office buildings from the outside, county planners appear to have been unmoved. 

County officials had registered their misgivings about data centers on the same property in the past. BlackChamber Group, a real estate investment firm co-founded by COPT’s Charles Fiala that has been involved in a number of projects throughout Northern Virginia, previously proposed building a single 530K SF data center on the site. The project was withdrawn after cool reception from local lawmakers in May 2021.  

Despite the partnership with national residential giant Fairfield, the future of Innovation Gateway is very much in question ahead of an expected vote at Tuesday’s Planning Commission hearing. The rezoning requests needed for the project would eventually require the approval of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, which can disregard the Planning Commission’s recommendations. 

Fairfield Residential and BlackChamber Group didn't respond to requests for comment.