Data center coverage in Prince William County, Virginia
14 headlines archived for Prince William County — no documented moratorium or ban on file here yet. See the moratorium tracker for towns that have taken formal action, or the full story tracker to browse every place we're following.
The projects on the table
PW Digital Gateway — Withdrawn
Operator: Compass Datacenters / QTS · Acres: 2,100
Approved in 2023 (4-3-1) but the rezoning was judicially voided over defective hearing notice; county and developer dropped their appeals in 2026, ending the project as approved.
Next: Withdrawn — confirm it is dead in the record and watch for the same site resurfacing under a new name or LLC.
Latest in the record
- 2026-07-02 — QTS affiliate GW Acquisition Co. withdrew its Virginia Supreme Court petition, officially ending the Digital Gateway project; QTS stated it decided 'after careful consideration' to terminate and proceed with a responsible wind-down. · source
- 2026-04-30 — QTS filed a last-minute petition for appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court hours before the 11:59 p.m. deadline, becoming the sole remaining party seeking to revive the project after Compass Datacenters dropped its appeal on April 28. · source
- 2026-04-14 — Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to abandon its legal defense of the Digital Gateway; the county had spent roughly $1.7 million in taxpayer funds defending the project as of March 31. · source
- 2026-04-01 — County dropped its legal appeals (~$1.7M spent defending the project) and the developer withdrew, terminating the approved Digital Gateway (April 2026). · source
- 2026-03-01 — Virginia's Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court ruling voiding the rezoning over defective public-hearing notice (March 2026). · source
- 2025-11-17 — Virginia Court of Appeals ordered that Compass and QTS are barred from land disturbance or construction on the Digital Gateway site pending resolution of the appeal. · source
Full dated timeline on the project tracker.
Source. Read 2026-08-07.
Google Bristow —
Operator: Google · Owner: Google · Tenant: Google DeepMind · Size: 279 MW
Chip types: TPU v5e,TPU v5p,TPU v6e,TPU v7. Epoch AI estimates ~279 MW.
Next: Already operating — the leverage now is enforcement: noise and water conditions, tax revenue tracking, and any expansion filing, which reopens the record.
Latest in the record
- 2025-08-28 — The Prince William Times reported that Google's Mango Farm data center complex at 13001 Rollins Ford Road in Bristow, next to Gainesville High School, occupies 250 acres with one operational data center of about 290,000 square feet, is valued at $1.2 billion by Prince William County, and has plans filed for at least two more data centers on the site. · source
- 2025-08-27 — Google announced an additional $9 billion investment in Virginia through the end of 2026 for cloud and AI infrastructure, including expansion of existing facilities in Prince William County; the Bristow Mango Farm complex is included in the investment, per the Prince William Times. · source
- 2024-04-26 — Google announced a $1 billion investment to expand its Virginia data centers, including its newly opened Prince William County campus and two Loudoun County sites, bringing total Virginia investment to over $4.2 billion; Governor Youngkin attended the announcement at Google's Reston headquarters. · source
- 2024-03-07 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved Sharpless Enterprises' application for the 181-acre data center complex at 6201 Wellington Road near Bristow, after reviewing potential impacts on nearby wetlands and streams; Corps biologist Anna Lawston said nothing substantial changed between the initial application and final approval. · source
- 2023-11-01 — In November 2023, Delaware-based Sharpless Enterprises LLC, a shell company linked to Google, submitted plans to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a 181-acre data center campus with four buildings, an electric substation, and auxiliary structures on Wellington Road in western Prince William County, on the former Atlantic Research Corporation site. · source
- 2023-01-01 — Google's Prince William County data center campus in Bristow, a roughly 290,000-square-foot facility on the 250-acre Mango Farm site at 13001 Rollins Ford Road, was built and became operational in 2023, according to Virginia Business. · source
Full dated timeline on the project tracker.
Source. Read 2026-08-14.
Dulles Cloud South — Denied
Acres: 2,000
~2,000-acre / 43M sq ft rezoning rejected days after Digital Gateway collapsed.
Next: Denied — watch for a re-filing or a scaled-down resubmission; ask the clerk to add you to the notification list.
Latest in the record
- 2026-07-08 — Board rejected rezoning days after Digital Gateway legal fight ended. · source
Full dated timeline on the project tracker.
Source. Read 2026-08-19.
What's been reported
14 stories tracked since 2026-04-08 across 9 outlets. 11× A community is pushing back on a nearby data center. 2× Water use for cooling is straining the local supply. Most recent: “Northern Virginia's Prince William County puts controls on new data center projects” (Data Center Dynamics, 2026-09-25).
- Northern Virginia's Prince William County puts controls on new data center projects
- Prince William County moves to end by-right data centers
- Prince William County supervisors vote to slow data center development
- Prince William County overhauls its approval framework for new data centers
- Prince William County supervisors to take landmark vote on data centers Tuesday
- Prince William County Board To Vote On Restricting Data Center Development
- Tech Giant Files Application For New Data Center In Prince William County: Report
- Microsoft files to build data center campus in Prince William County, Virginia
- Plans for data center campus in Virginia’s Prince William County refiled
- Plans For Up To 5 New Data Centers In Western Prince William County Revived: Report
- As drought grips Virginia, Prince William County challenges hidden data center water use
- As drought grips Virginia, Prince William County challenges hidden data center water use
+2 more on the story tracker.
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 14 headlines archived.
Where the decision gets made
Board of County Supervisors — Rezonings, special use permits and comprehensive plan amendments — the body that approved the PW Digital Gateway. Seven district members plus an at-large Chair.
Meets: See the county's published annual meeting calendar
Where: 1 County Complex Court, Prince William, VA 22192
Public comment: Residents may attend in person or participate remotely. Each supervisor keeps a district office — contacting your own district member directly is more effective than the general line.
703-792-4311 · website
Read from the official page on 2026-07-26. Meeting details change — confirm before you go.
Who votes on it
| Name | Role | Phone | Recorded stance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deshundra Jefferson | Chair | chair@pwcgov.org | 703-792-4640 | not recorded |
| Tom Gordy | Supervisor | tgordy@pwcgov.org | 703-792-6190 | not recorded |
| Yesli Vega | Supervisor | yvega@pwcgov.org | 703-792-4620 | not recorded |
| George Stewart | Supervisor | gstewart@pwcgov.org | 703-792-6195 | not recorded |
| Victor S. Angry | Supervisor | vsangry@pwcgov.org | 703-792-4668 | not recorded |
| Kenny Boddye | Supervisor | kboddye@pwcgov.org | 703-792-4643 | not recorded |
| Andrea Bailey | Supervisor | abailey@pwcgov.org | 703-792-4563 | not recorded |
| Jeannie LaCroix | Supervisor | JLaCroix@pwcgov.org | — | not recorded |
From the locality's own roster page; "not recorded" means no public statement is on file, not neutrality.
What to do next
- Questions to ask at the hearing — force specific answers onto the record.
- Estimate the impact — electricity, water, and rate pressure for any facility size in Virginia.
- Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
- Virginia briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.
Part of the story tracker — automated news aggregation, CC BY 4.0.