Green Energy Ventures Presents its Plan for the King George Technology Center
Company wants to build a data center in the Route 3 West Settlement Area and presented preliminary plans to the Planning Commission last month.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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The King George Planning Commission last month heard its first presentation from Green Energy Ventures, LLC (GEV), a partnership that hopes to build a data center within the Route 3 West Settlement Area.
Hobie Mitchell, a managing partner in the company, and other members of the team attended the December 10, 2024, Planning Commission meeting to provide an overview into plans for the King George Technology Center, which have been in the works for more than two years.
Of particular import to commissioners was the fact that developers said they don’t plan to use water to cool the data center.
“You should have led with that,” one of the commissioners said. “That’s a huge issue for the county.”
The King George Technology Center would be located on 352 acres in the Route 3 West Settlement Area, near the county landfill, the headquarters of Bloomia U.S.A, the residential neighborhood of Oakland Park, and the border with Stafford County.
Forty of the 352 acres are currently zoned for industrial use, and the rest is zoned agricultural. GEV is requesting to rezone all the acreage to industrial.
“The rest of it has always been planned for industrial uses” according to the county’s Comprehensive Plan, Mitchell said.
The development plan shows 7.2 million square feet of data center facilities at full buildout, anticipated to be 2037. There will be four substations and 18 data center buildings—some two-story and some three-story, though the three-story buildings will not be visible from the periphery, Mitchell said.
Construction will be in phases, with 2.5 million square feet completed in Phase 1. The timing of the phasing will be based on demand, according to the proffer summary, and there is not yet an identified end user for the development, Mitchell said.
GEV will dedicate 18 acres on the property for the county to construct a water treatment plant and raw water storage area.
Though water will not be used to cool the data center, Clark Leming, land use attorney for GEV, said, “Nevertheless we’re going to be a big water user, and we have made presentations on how we can assist with that. We did prepare an MOU with some ideas for the [King George Service Authority] that would involve us in the process.”
Leming added, “We want to buy water from the county. The county should be in the water business and the sewer business.”
Mitchell estimated that the daily water usage for the data center at full buildout will be 70,000 gallons, for flushing toilets and drinking water.
GEV submitted the first application for the rezoning and special exception permit to build King George Tech Center in September of 2022, Mitchell said.
“We’re on our seventh submission on the rezoning and our fourth on the special exception as of today,” Mitchell said.
The company is proffering transportation improvements, to include right turn lanes into the facility from Route 3, which will be the main access point, and along Bloomsbury Road, as well as traffic signals “if warranted.”
There are also cash proffers—$1.25 million to the county, “on a fixed schedule, to mitigate public safety impacts attributable to the development” and “an additional sum, not to exceed $100,000” to hire and train personnel.
Also, “in addition to the taxes generated by the development, Green Energy Ventures will pay the County on an annual basis the sum of $2 per 100 finished square feet of data center facilities and accessory structures,” according to the proffer summary.
“We believe we are the first to proffer an annual contribution for public safety,” Mitchell said.
Commissioners said at the meeting that they don’t want to see GEV’s application go the way of Amazon’s, but they said they need a lot more details about the plans if they are going to support the project.
They asked that the development plan specify where on the property diesel-powered backup generators and diesel storage tanks would go and requested more details about the economic and traffic impacts of the development.
Leming said, “We recognize that we’ve never been before the Planning Commission with any substantial presentation about what we’ve been doing. We will be back in a more formal method.”
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