Charles City County to get 500-acre campus for data center

Diode Ventures, a Kansas-based company, recently submitted plans to county Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors for rezone 515 acres approximately 20 miles east of Richmond in order to create a datacenter campus named Roxbury Technology Park.

A Diode representative confirmed that the project costs and number of data center buildings on campus have not been determined yet. Diode estimated in its application that the construction of the campus data center would take between seven and ten years. The project has yet to be assigned a specific end-user.

The project site is located southwest of Roxbury. It consists of five parcels of land that are mostly forested.

Diode Ventures stated on its site that the area was ideal for a Data Center because “there is available land, overhead transmissions lines, close proximity to fiber networks and a workforce readily available, as well as support of economic growth in targeted areas, described in the 2014 Comprehensive Land Use Plan.”

In a report, Charles City County staff recommended approval of the rezoning by the Planning Commission, subject to the adjustments of certain proposals. The report says that the application complies with the economic growth sections of the county’s land use plan.

A county staff report states: “Digital commerce represents the next industrial revolution. It is vital that Charles City be able to participate in the digital economy for the next generation.”

Charles City County’s 2014 comprehensive land-use plan identified five parcels within the Roxbury Development Center. This area has been designated as a primary growth area in the county since 1979, and it has continued to grow.

According to the staff report, the site contains some wetland zones that are part of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area. However, these areas can be managed with mitigation strategies in order to reduce development impacts.

According to the application for zoning, there is some agricultural and industrial use around the property. Businesses nearby include Dominion Energy Chickahominy Substation and Chaney Enterprises Concrete Plant.

According to a report by the staff, there are no existing zoning permits, conditional uses or variances granted previously to the five parcels. Two parcels belong to trustee Andrea K. Greene. The rest are owned separately.

A zoning request for the project was originally submitted in November last year. In February, a revised application was filed.

The County Planning Commission will examine the proposal and take public comments before making a final recommendation to the Board of Supervisors. The Planning Commission will host a public hearing about the application on April 10.

The rezoning application includes 10 proposals, including prohibited uses such as intensive agriculture and junk yards, setbacks for buildings from boundary lines on the exterior, standards to reduce noise, etc. The county staff made several recommendations in relation to the proposals, such as modifying construction hours on Sundays.

Diode’s zoning application is represented by Preston Lloyd, Williams Mullen.

Diode says that after the completion of the data center there will be 120-200 permanent jobs, such as technicians for data centers, network engineers, and maintenance staff. In a letter sent in November, Diode stated that data center construction projects could create up to 1,200 skilled trades jobs.

Diode Ventures, headquartered in Overland Park Kansas, was founded in 2017. Diode Ventures is a subsidiary company of Black & Veatch, an engineering and construction firm. Diode worked on the development of data centers in Kansas City, Missouri and Kuna, Idaho. Diode has not yet announced if this is their first Virginia project.

Charles City County, Richmond is not the only locality to get on board with the data center trend. DC Blox, based in Atlanta, is moving ahead a 65,000 square-foot data center on a part of the property which, until recently, was home to Azalea Flea Market.

In Chesterfield, the Economic Development Authority recently filed rezoning applications for two data center campuses. One is near Westchester Commons, and the second on a part of Upper Magnolia Green near Moseley.