Amazon Bridgefield Tech Center (GW campus, Ashburn) In review
Four data center buildings (about 800,000 sq ft per WTOP; Northern Virginia Magazine reports ~400,000 sq ft plus three parking garages) on George Washington University's Virginia Science and Technology campus, filed as a site plan under 1972-era zoning so it would need no Planning Commission review, public hearing or Board vote. The county says data centers are not by-right there and will require special-exception review. Construction cannot start until GW vacates, up to five years. 'rezoning_filed' here is the site-plan filing date.
Key facts
- Operator
- Amazon (AWS)
- Owner
- Amazon Data Services
- Tenant
- Amazon (AWS)
- Filing LLC
- Amazon Data Services
- Size
- 122 ac
- Location
- Ashburn (Loudoun County), Virginia
- First proposed
- 2026-03-17
- Application filed
- 2026-07-31
- Stage today
- In review
Source
read 2026-09-05
What to do next
Next step: Application filed. Ask the planning office for the hearing date and request formal notice.
What has happened so far (3 events)
- 2026-03-17announcement
Amazon Data Services bought George Washington University's Ashburn campus for $427 million. Economic development director Buddy Rizer: "At no time has the Board of Supervisors envisioned data centers on that property," and the county said any data center there needs special-exception review before the Board of Supervisors, not by-right approval. · source - 2026-07-31filing
Amazon Data Services filed a site plan for four two-story data center buildings and three parking garages on the 122-acre campus. Supervisor Juli Briskman (Algonkian): "Replacing the George Washington University campus with four massive data center buildings would be a profound loss for our community." · source - 2026-08-04meeting
Amazon presented the 'Bridgefield Tech Center' plan (about 800,000 sq ft in four buildings) to residents. The application relies on 1972 zoning to proceed as a site plan with no Planning Commission review, public hearing or Board vote. Briskman called it too close to homes, Bles Park and the Potomac; residents described the area as becoming "a concrete jungle." · source
Find the paper trail
Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)
State environmental permits
Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.
- Virginia DEQThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
- Search Virginia DEQ for this projectsearchThis state publishes no searchable permit database, so a written records request to the agency is the reliable route. Use this search only to find the right office.
County & town filings
The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.
- Search Ashburn (Loudoun County) planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
- Search Ashburn (Loudoun County) property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.
Utility & grid records
The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.
- PJM Interconnection (Mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
- Virginia State Corporation Commission — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
- FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
- Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.
Federal databases
Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.
- EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 39.050, -77.460 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
- EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
- EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.
These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.
Recent news
- Amazon's Ashburn Data Center Plans Must Face Public Review: Loudoun Zoning Administrator
- Loudoun Official Discusses Potential Hurdles For Amazon's Ashburn Data Center Plans
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 2 headlines archived.
Around here
- Loudoun County community briefing — Proposedterm not documented
- Virginia briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Virginia
- Google Arcola — Sterling (Loudoun County), 4 mi
- Dulles Cloud South — Prince William County, 20 mi Denied
- STACK Infrastructure NVA02 — Manassas, 22 mi Under construction
- Google Bristow — Bristow (Prince William County), 23 mi
- PW Digital Gateway — Prince William County, 23 mi Withdrawn
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Amazon Bridgefield Tech Center (GW campus, Ashburn)”, aigridwatch.com/projects/amazon-bridgefield-ashburn-va, retrieved 2026-10-11.
As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing
A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.
Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).