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Developer Peterson Cos. is continuing its push into data centers with plans for a 2.1M SF campus in Virginia’s Culpeper County.
The Culpeper Technology Campus received rezoning approval from county officials last week, paving the way for as many as nine data center buildings and a generator yard spread over 150 acres, Data Center Dynamics reports. Located at the intersection of Routes 799 and 699, the campus is expected to have power by 2025 following the installation of a pair of 300-megawatt substations by utility Dominion Energy.
The Culpeper County Board of Supervisors granted a key approval for the project Wednesday with the decision to rezone a 34.4-acre parcel included in the project site. The remaining 115 acres received rezoning approval in May.
Fairfax-based Peterson Cos., a well-known developer of office, retail, residential and light industrial properties in the D.C. area, isn't known as a major player in the digital infrastructure sector. Still, the company is now involved in three separate large data center projects in emerging industry hubs across Northern Virginia.
In April, Peterson filed plans for a $1.5B data center campus in Stafford County, a massive 524-acre project near the Stafford Regional Airport that could include as many as 25 separate buildings. In 2020, the company announced it would partner with data center developer Stack Infrastructure on a data center campus near Manassas in Prince William County. That project could eventually reach 250 megawatts of capacity.
Just as Peterson is a relative newcomer on the data center landscape, Culpeper County hasn't been one of Northern Virginia’s traditional hotbeds for data center development. It is home to just four Equinix data centers that are more than a decade old, according to Data Center Dynamics. But that is in the process of changing.
Indeed, county officials are considering rezoning 116 acres directly adjacent to the Peterson site for the Copper Ridge Data Center Campus, a project that could entail as much as 2.4M SF of data center space over eight buildings. Amazon Web Services is also planning a Culpeper data center, although it is the target of lawsuits by local resident groups hoping to overturn the county’s decision to approve the project.
Another 250-acre campus was proposed in the town of Brandy Station, but the developer withdrew the project in January in the face of significant public opposition.
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