Richmond region's data center boom meets local headwinds
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Multiple proposals for data centers in the Richmond region have been rejected or withdrawn in recent months.
Why it matters: As illustrated with Monday's Amazon Web Services outage at its Northern Virginia facility — which disrupted thousands of websites worldwide — data centers are essential to our digital lives.
- And while there are plenty of local projects in the works, some communities are pushing back to keep the massive server complexes out, arguing they're noisy eyesores that drive up land and power costs.
The latest: Last week, local developer Wagner Urban Logistics pulled its proposal for a nearly 200-acre center in Eastern Henrico, the day before the Henrico Board of Supervisors was scheduled to vote on it, Henrico Citizen reports.
- It would've been the first proposal the county considered under tightened restrictions adopted this summer requiring public input for new data centers.
- The developer's plan to build the center across the street from a residential neighborhood and a half-mile from Baker Elementary drew widespread opposition from neighbors and district officials.
Meanwhile, Powhatan's planning commission last week unanimously rejected a California-based developer's proposal to expand a data center in the works along the Chesterfield border, citing concerns about its voracious power needs, BizSense reports.
- In August, a Kansas-based developer withdrew plans for a 500-acre data center in Charles City County due to public pushback.
- In July, Amazon scrapped plans for a massive data center in Louisa County after residents fought it.
- In June, Chesterfield's planning commission unanimously denied a proposal from a Denver-based data center planning firm, which ultimately withdrew its application. That same week, the county started developing new data center restrictions.
Reality check: Richmond already has the second-highest concentration of data centers in a state that's known as "the data center capital of the world," per DataCenterMap.com.
- And just this summer, Richmond was named one of the fastest-growing data center markets in the country as developers look beyond Northern Virginia's "Data Center Alley."
What we're watching: Wagner Urban Logistics is resubmitting its Eastern Henrico data center proposal using a different approach, while Powhatan's board of supervisors will have the final say on the proposal at its Monday meeting, per BizSense.