Board approves land sale for a data center

Despite strong opposition from community members, the Board of Supervisors on March 17 approved a controversial sale of county land to a data center developer.

The board agreed to sell 41.7 acres at 3721 Stonecroft Blvd. in Chantilly to the Starwood Capital Group for $166.8 million.

The county entered into an agreement with Starwood Capital Group last June to sell the land for for $4 million per acre in a deal that prohibited public disclosure.

That parcel is part of a 128-acre property owned by the county used for police training facilities. The county plans to use the proceeds from the sale to build a new Criminal Justice Academy and consolidate the training activities on the remaining 86 acres.

The board approved the measure unanimously without discussion.

The Sully District Land Use and Transportation Committee and the Western Fairfax County Citizens Association issued a joint resolution urging the Board of Supervisors to reject the land sale.

Related story: Environmental groups protest sale of county land for a data center

The resolution notes that the county has failed to provide information on the location of a substation and transmission lines needed for the data center, the impact on public health, and additional costs associated with the sale.

They oppose the proliferation of additional data centers as a by-right land use in Fairfax County without a study of the public health impacts.  

Starwood Capital Group is the same company planning to construct a huge data center at Plaza 500 in the Bren Mar Park area of Mason District, which would be served by an electrical transmission line adjacent to residents’ backyards.

Tyler Ray, founder of the Save Bren Mar Coalition, called the land sale “a profound breach of public trust.”

Ray said the sale bypassed standard competitive bidding and Request for Proposal processes to hand over prime real estate to a controversial data center developer at a deeply discounted rate.

“The Board of Supervisors under Vice Chairman Kathy Smith’s direction proved they are more interested in confidential deals with data center developers than protecting Fairfax County residents,” Ray said.

“Recent data center land sales in Northern Virginia have commanded between $6 million and $9 million per acre,” he said. “The coalition estimates the county left between $33 million and $208 million in potential revenue on the table based on those sale ranges.”

“By handing over public land at a deep discount and bypassing an open and transparent competitive bidding process, they left tens of millions of dollars on the table and betrayed the public’s trust,” Ray said. “It is clear data center developers currently control this county.”