HAYMARKET SWIM TEAM WINS SUMMER LEAGUE TITLE: Sports, Pages 11-12
August 4, 2022 | Vol. 21, No. 31 | www.princewilliamtimes.com | $1.00 Covering Prince William County and surrounding communities, including Gainesville, Haymarket, Dumfries, Occoquan, Quantico and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.
New data center corridor advances in Bristow Devlin Technology Park proposes 7 to 11 more data centers near Linton Hall, Devlin roads By Jill Palermo
Times Staff Writer
Despite concerns from some residents about unsightly buildings and noise, the Prince William County Planning Commission voted Wednesday, July 27 to greenlight another large data center campus -this time in Bristow. The Devlin Technology Park is proposed for 270 vacant acres stretching from the intersection of Linton Hall and Devlin roads to the back of Chris Yung Elementary School. The project would bring a maximum of 4.25 million square feet of data center space likely spread among seven to 11 different buildings.
The property was originally part of the ill-fated Stonehaven residential development, a controversial plan that would have allowed more than 1,000 homes and provided a donated site for the county’s 13th high school, now known as Gainesville High School. After the project fell through, the Prince William County school division purchased a site in the same area for the school, which opened last fall. In March 2020, housing developer Stanley Martin won the county’s approval to build 516 new homes on part of the site, a development some called “Stone haven-lite.” See TECH PARK, page 2
PHOTO BY ROGER SNYDER
Data centers slated for 728 acres in Bristow: The Prince William County Planning Commission recommended approval July 27 of the Devlin Technology Park in Bristow. The plan would allow up to 4.25 million square feet of data center space in seven to 11 buildings on 270 acres near Linton Hall and Devlin roads in Bristow. Data centers have already been approved on the adjacent 458 acres south of Gainesville High School.
Dominion: New transmission lines needed for proposed ‘PW Digital Gateway’ By Jill Palermo
Times Staff Writer
TIMES STAFF PHOTO
Pageland Lane area transmission lines: Western Prince William landowners asking for their rural land to be replanned for data centers as part of the controversial “Prince William Digital Gateway” point to existing transmission lines that they say have already diminished the area’s rural character. But those lines alone likely won’t be enough to power the new data center corridor, Dominion officials say.
Proponents of the Prince William Digital Gateway – a controversial plan to allow a massive new data center corridor on land adjacent to the Manassas National Battlefield Park in the county’s “rural crescent” – say the existing high-voltage transmission lines along Pageland Lane are a main reason the project should be approved. The 500-kilovolt lines, constructed in 2008, stand 120 feet tall, mar the landscape and detract from the area’s rural feel, according to Pageland Lane area landowners backing a plan to open 2,133 acres along the roadway to new data centers. More than 100 property owners along the roadway have signed contracts with two data center developers to sell their land at a
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rate of about $1 million an acre if the Prince William Board of County Supervisors ultimately approves the plan. But the unexpected news late last week that Dominion Energy doesn’t have enough electrical infrastructure to serve data centers coming online over the next few years in Loudoun County’s data center alley around the Dulles Airport revealed new details about the limitations of the current transmission lines near the proposed PW Digital Gateway. Data centers currently operating, under construction and approved in Prince William County will not be impacted by the pending power crunch because of recent and pending power improvements in the area of Innovation Park, according to Aaron Ruby, Dominion Energy’s media relations manager. See GATEWAY, page 4
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