Project dossier · Sterling (Loudoun County), Virginia

Google Arcola Operating

Epoch AI estimates ~77 MW.

Key facts

Operator: Google
Owner: Google
Size: 77 MW
Location: Sterling (Loudoun County), Virginia
Stage today: Operating

Source
read 2026-08-14

What to do next

Next step: Already operating — the leverage now is enforcement: noise and water conditions, tax revenue tracking, and any expansion filing, which reopens the record.

Build an action pack for this project →

What has happened so far (9 events)

2017-11-30announcement
Google confirmed it purchased a 91-acre site at Arcola Center in Loudoun County for $58 million and a 57-acre site at Stonewall Business Park near Leesburg for $31 million, totaling 148 acres for $89 million, marking its entry into owned data center property in Northern Virginia. · source
2018-05-01rezoning
In May 2018, the developer Arcola LLC proposed major proffer revisions for the Arcola Center site to convert 45 acres from commercial retail to industrial park (data center) use, delete commercial and residential phasing, and revise road construction timelines. · source
2018-09-12hearing
The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors held a public hearing on Google's Arcola Center rezoning application to expand data center development beyond the 1.5 million sq ft permitted by-right to up to 2.35 million sq ft; county staff had recommended against the proposal citing concerns about data centers becoming the dominant land use. · source
2018-10-25vote
The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors approved Google's Arcola Center rezoning 6-0 (2 absent, 1 abstention), permitting up to 2.35 million sq ft of data center development in exchange for $25.3 million in proffers including road improvements, $5.2 million toward a Route 50 interchange, land and $5.6 million for an elementary school, and nearly $4 million in capital facilities contributions. · source
2019-06-01financing
In June 2019, Google announced a $600 million investment to expand its Loudoun County data center campuses at Arcola Center and Stonewall Business Park, bringing its total Virginia investment to $1.2 billion, alongside $200,000 in STEM education grants to local foundations. · source
2020-01-01operational
Google's first data center building at the Dulles Arcola Center campus (Building 1, short code ARA1A) at 42575 Arcola Blvd, Sterling, VA became operational, listed with a year built of 2020. · source
2022-01-01construction
Google's Arcola 2 building on the Arcola campus became operational, listed with a year built of 2022. · source
2024-04-26financing
Google announced a $1 billion investment to expand its Virginia data center campuses, including the two Loudoun County sites (Arcola and Leesburg) and a Prince William County facility, bringing total Virginia investment to over $4.2 billion; the announcement was made by Google President Ruth Porat alongside Governor Glenn Youngkin at Google's Reston headquarters. · source
2024-04-26announcement
Alongside the $1 billion expansion, Google announced a $75 million AI Opportunity Fund for workforce development and confirmed its Arcola and Leesburg campuses are located within Loudoun County's data center overlay district. · 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 Sterling (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 Sterling (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 39.010, -77.520 — 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.

Around here

Loudoun County community briefing — Proposedterm not documented
Virginia briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Other tracked projects in Virginia

Amazon Bridgefield Tech Center (GW campus, Ashburn) — Ashburn (Loudoun County), 4 mi In review
Dulles Cloud South — Prince William County, 16 mi Denied
Google Bristow — Bristow (Prince William County), 19 mi Operating
STACK Infrastructure NVA02 — Manassas, 20 mi Under construction
PW Digital Gateway — Prince William County, 20 mi Withdrawn

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Google Arcola”, aigridwatch.com/projects/google-arcola, 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).