Project dossier · Fredericksburg, Virginia

Vantage VA4 Fredericksburg Under construction

$2B, 192MW hyperscale campus (VA4); first building scheduled to open late 2027.

Key facts

Operator
Vantage Data Centers
Size
192 MW
Location
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Stage today
Under construction

Source

What to do next

Next step: Under construction — pull the approved conditions and permits and hold the builder to them; an expansion or a new building reopens the record.

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What has happened so far (10 events)

  • 2025-10-21rezoning
    After a marathon public hearing, the Stafford Board of Supervisors voted 4-2-1 to adopt a Comprehensive Plan update (R25-208) and zoning amendment (O25-29) imposing a 750-foot data-center setback from homes, schools and rivers (up from 100 feet); this date became the cutoff later used to grandfather VA4/Melrod under prior rules. · source
  • 2025-10-21protest
    At the same hearing, residents including Falmouth's Alane Callander and groups like Friends of the Rappahannock pushed for setbacks as large as 1,500 feet and raised water, noise and viewshed concerns about the wave of Stafford data-center rezonings that includes Vantage's VA4/Melrod project. · source
  • 2025-11-06announcement
    Vantage Data Centers announced a $2 billion investment to build VA4, a 192MW, three-building, 929,000-sq-ft campus on 82 acres in Stafford County near Fredericksburg — its fourth Virginia campus, bringing statewide capacity to 782MW. · source
  • 2025-11-06construction
    Vantage and general contractor DPR Construction held a groundbreaking ceremony for VA4, attended by Virginia Deputy Secretary of Commerce Luis Lopez Stipes, Stafford Supervisors Meg Bohmke and Darrell English, and IBEW Local 26; first building targeted for late 2027. · source
  • 2025-12-02rezoning
    Stafford Board of Supervisors approved Ordinance O25-29(R), grandfathering five previously-approved data center projects — including Vantage VA-4 (Melrod) — allowing them to proceed under the pre-Oct. 21, 2025 zoning rules rather than the new setback/noise standards. · source
  • 2025-12-02protest
    Environmental advocates and residents who fought for the October setback reforms objected to the grandfathering vote, arguing it undermined protections they had just won for projects like VA4/Melrod. · source
  • 2026-03-01coverage
    Virginia Business reported VA4 is expected to generate $115.4–$116.7 million in annual property tax revenue for Stafford County, while Protect Stafford president Erin Sanzero warned county officials were unprepared for the volume of data-center rezoning applications and that Stafford risked becoming 'the next Data Center Alley.' · source
  • 2026-03-25permit
    Stafford Planning Commission voted 7-0 to recommend Board approval of a conditional use permit for a Vantage Data Centers VA41 LLC electric substation on 15.62 acres on Centerport Parkway (Hartwood District), to serve the VA4 campus's on-site power needs. · source
  • 2026-05-19permit
    Stafford Board of Supervisors approved the conditional use permit for Vantage's on-site electric substation supporting the VA4 data center campus. · source
  • 2026-07-02incentive
    Potomac Local reported Stafford had five approved data-center projects (three, including VA4, under construction) and 11 pending applications amid a state budget fight; Virginia's compromise preserved data-center sales-tax equipment exemptions (~$2B/year statewide) while adding a new $0.011/kWh electricity consumption tax capped near $600M/year. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (2 filed · 11 places to look)

Permits already on file (2)

Filings we have a source for — the record, not a place to look for one.

  • 2026-05-19
    Stafford Board of Supervisors approved the conditional use permit for Vantage's on-site electric substation supporting the VA4 data center campus. · source
  • 2026-03-25
    Stafford Planning Commission voted 7-0 to recommend Board approval of a conditional use permit for a Vantage Data Centers VA41 LLC electric substation on 15.62 acres on Centerport Parkway (Hartwood District), to serve the VA4 campus's on-site power needs. · source

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.

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.

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.
  • 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

Other tracked projects in Virginia

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Vantage VA4 Fredericksburg”, aigridwatch.com/projects/vantage-va4-fredericksburg-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).

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