Evaporative Technologies Company to Expand in Virginia

Condair Group AG plans a $57.2 million manufacturing campus in Chesterfield County that company and state officials say will put Virginia at the center of evaporative cooling supply for the booming data center industry.

Governor Glenn Youngkin announced that the Switzerland-based firm will convert and expand a roughly 400,000-square-foot site in Chesterfield, with operations targeted to begin in early 2025. The project is expected to create 180 jobs. Virginia competed with South Carolina for the investment, according to the governor’s office.

Condair makes commercial humidifiers, dehumidifiers, and related evaporative cooling equipment used in large industrial settings. Its customer list includes major cloud and data center operators such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. Officials framed the Chesterfield site as a way to put production closer to Northern Virginia and Richmond-area demand, where hyperscale campuses continue to multiply.

“Virginia is the perfect location for the international company Condair to establish its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that meets the large-scale industrial cooling needs for the data center industry,” Youngkin said. “Virginia is the epicenter of the growing data center industry, and we applaud the 21st century manufacturing jobs that this project will bring to Chesterfield County.”

Secretary of Commerce and Trade Caren Merrick said the win reflects the Commonwealth’s manufacturing base, location, and workforce pipeline. She pointed prospective applicants to the company’s Virginia hiring site as the project ramps up.

Condair CEO Oliver Zimmermann said the Richmond-area plant will strengthen North American capacity alongside existing sites in Racine, Wisconsin, and Ottawa, Canada. He described the move as both a production expansion and a way to stay closer to data center clients across the continent.

Local leaders treated the announcement as foreign direct investment with regional spillover. Chesterfield Board of Supervisors Chair James Holland said the company will remake an existing facility into a modern manufacturing floor and praised the county’s openness to international firms. Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan said the investment underscores Virginia’s workforce and will create good-paying jobs in the Fourth Congressional District. State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi and Del. Delores McQuinn likewise cast the project as a lift for Chesterfield households and the broader Richmond economy.

Greater Richmond Partnership President and CEO Jennifer Wakefield said Condair’s third North American plant will put about 45 percent of the U.S. population within a one-day delivery drive of the new site. Virginia Port Authority CEO Stephen Edwards said cargo growth and access through Richmond Marine Terminal could follow as Condair taps Port of Virginia assets for global shipping.

Founded in Switzerland in 1948, Condair Group operates production sites in Europe, North America, and China, with sales and service organizations in 23 countries and representatives in roughly 50 locations worldwide. Company materials describe humidification and evaporative cooling as critical for data centers and supercomputing, where precise humidity and thermal control protect equipment and efficiency.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Chesterfield County and the Greater Richmond Partnership to land the project. Youngkin approved a $700,000 Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund grant to assist Chesterfield. Condair is also described as eligible for the Major Business Facility Job Tax Credit for new full-time jobs and for Port of Virginia Economic and Infrastructure Development Zone Grant Program benefits.

Workforce support is slated through the Virginia Talent Accelerator Program, a VEDP initiative run with the Virginia Community College System and other higher education partners. Launched in 2019, the program customizes recruitment and training to a company’s products, equipment, and culture at no cost to qualifying firms as an incentive for job creation.

For Chesterfield, the pitch is familiar: available industrial space, highway and port access, and proximity to one of the world’s densest data center markets. For Condair, the calculus is supply-chain proximity. Cooling gear that once crossed longer distances can be built nearer the campuses that need it, with less lag between order and install as operators race to bring megawatts online.

Data center growth remains politically and environmentally contested across Virginia, but economic development officials continue to recruit the suppliers that ride that wave. Condair’s humidification and evaporative systems sit one layer upstream of the server halls themselves. A local plant does not resolve debates over power, water, or land use, but it does translate regional demand into factory employment in Chesterfield.

Hiring, permitting, and build-out timelines will determine how quickly the 180 jobs materialize. Early 2025 remains the public target for operations. Until then, state and local partners say the package of site work, training, and tax incentives is meant to keep Condair’s North American expansion centered on Virginia rather than a competing Southern state.

Readers watching Richmond-region manufacturing should treat the announcement as another marker that data center infrastructure is reshaping not only Loudoun and Prince William campuses but also the industrial supply chain south of the James. Condair’s bet is that Chesterfield can serve that market at scale.

Email the Chesterfield County Board:
Jim Ingle, IngleJ@chesterfield.gov,
LeQuan Hylton, HyltonL@chesterfield.gov,
Kevin Carroll, CarrollKevin@chesterfield.gov,
Jessica Schneider, SchneiderJes@chesterfield.gov,
Mark Miller, MillerMark@chesterfield.gov,

Email the Richmond City Council:
Andrew Breton, andrew.breton@rva.gov,
Katherine Jordan, katherine.jordan@rva.gov,
Kenya Gibson, kenya.gibson@rva.gov,
Sarah Abubaker, sarah.abubaker@rva.gov,
Stephanie Lynch, stephanie.lynch@rva.gov,
Ellen Robertson, ellen.robertson@rva.gov,
Cynthia Newbille, cynthia.newbille@rva.gov,
Reva Trammell, reva.trammell@rva.gov,
Nicole Jones, nicole.jones@rva.gov,