Leesburg Data Center Utility Extension Approved

BY NORMAN K. STYER nstyer@loudounnow.com

Leesburg may be building its own little data center alley.

On Tuesday, the Town Council approved an agreement to provide water and sewer service to two, two-story data centers planned for the Compass Creek retail center, along the Dulles Greenway just north of Microsoft’s data center campus.

The plans call for a 400,000-squarefoot data center and second building with 200,000 square feet for data center uses and the rest for offices. The utility service would only be used for office-type uses and would not be incorporated into the data center cooling systems.

The 30-acre tract, owned by the Peterson Companies, is just south of the town’s corporate limits. As part of the resolution authorizing the extension of utilities to the property the council required that the owners within the next 30 days request a boundary line adjustment to bring the land into the town limits.

The tract is part of the town/county Joint Land Management Area targeted for town utility service and potential expansion. However, it also is subject to an annexation battle launched by the town last year after the county rejected its efforts to incorporate the Compass Creek center and the Microsoft campus to the south through a boundary line adjustment.

Unlike the adversarial annexation process that is reviewed by the Commission on Local Government in Richmond, a boundary line adjustment is a cooperative process that only requires resolutions by the Town Council and Board of Supervisors, with final approval coming from a Circuit Court judge.

Asked whether the town’s annexation lawsuit would cause the county to oppose a boundary line adjustment for the Peterson land, Town Attorney Chris Spera said that was uncertain.

Another condition in the utility service resolution was a commitment by the town that the current personal property tax rate of $1 per $100 in value not be increased for at least five years. That tax that is applied to equipment in data centers. If brought into town, the data centers would pay real estate and personal property taxes to the county and to the town.

That tax rate freeze promise was a sticking point for Council member Patrick Wilt, who noted that other town businesses aren’t afforded such commitments on the taxes they pay. He cast the lone vote against the utility resolution.

The Peterson request was the third request for out-of-town utility extensions within the JMLA reviewed by the Town Council this year.

Last month, the council approved providing water and sewer service to the Loudoun County Fire and Rescue Basic Training Facility to be built on the county government’s campus south of town near Leesburg Executive Airport.

The council deferred action on a request to provide temporary water service to Titan Virginia Ready-Mix, which is moving its operations to a new location on Cochran Mill Road east of Leesburg after selling its property to JK Land Holdings, which plans a 112-acre data center campus. Unlike the other two cases, the property where the water service was requested is not contiguous to the town boundary. n