BEST OF 2025: Data Centers
2025 was the year the data center debate went from a simmer to a boil.
Applications for rezonings and special use permits for data center developments kept coming to localities in the Fredericksburg region, special interest groups organized to protest such developments, and local boards debated setbacks, water and power usage, noise limitations, and more.
The Advance’s most-read stories in the data center category included a rezoning request in Stafford for a 7.9 million data center in Hartwood; an op-ed from City Councilor Will Mackintosh on the city’s Technology Overlay District; a look at the Cosner Tech Campus, nearing completion in Spotsylvania; a Digital Insights column on the relationship between home values and data center campuses; an editor’s column on the Stafford Board of Supervisors’ debate over setbacks; and the Fredericksburg Planning Commission’s consideration of the Gateway data center project.
Our selection for top story of the year in this category is the continuing fallout from the King George Board of Supervisor’s decision in January of 2024 to rescind a performance agreement with Amazon Data Services and initiate the downzoning from industrial to agricultural of nine parcels, totaling 893 acres, that the company purchased for $168 million in 2023. Amazon’s appeal of these decisions began this year.
King George Board of Zoning Appeals Denies Request from Amazon Data Services
By Adele Uphaus
Company is seeking a determination that it has vested rights in property it purchased in 2023 with the intention of developing a data center.
Read the full story
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