Amazon has plans to occupy a massive data center campus near Dulles International Airport that will be the largest such campus in Fairfax County, the Washington Business Journal reports.
Amazon Data Services, Inc. filed paperwork last week to inform Fairfax County that it applied for air pollution control permit applications with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality for two data centers called IAD-500 and IAD-501. These properties, at 13860 and 13876 Redskin Dr., are located within the Renaissance Technology Park, an industrial park in Herndon near Route 28.
The 60-acre park is being cleared of warehouses, according to the Washington Business Journal, and there are plans to construct four data centers, a substation, a guard house, a security building, and water storage on the site. With plans to encompass 2.14 million square feet, this would become the largest data center campus in the county once complete.
Starwood Capital Group proposed this redevelopment in 2021, according to FFXNow. It would progress in stages, beginning with a three-story data center.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved a special exception application for the development in July 2022, allowing taller buildings.
Fairfax County is currently reviewing a site plan for the first phase of development, which developers submitted in May. This plan includes updates to the parking areas, landscape, security fencing, and more.
This news comes just weeks after Fairfax County approved new zoning ordinances for data centers. The new changes include restrictions on data center size, requiring centers to be at least 1 mile from any Metro station and at least 200 feet from a residential lot, and requiring pre- and post-construction noise studies. The county would require backup generators to be 300 feet from residential property lines and for the centers to be screened in to reduce the amount of noise they generate.
Feature image, stock.adobe.com
For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine’s News newsletter.
