Mason land use committee to consider substation for Plaza 500 data center

The Bren Mar Park community’s four-year battle against Starwood Capital’s proposed data center at the Plaza 500 site on Edsall Road is nearing the final stage.

The Fairfax County Planning Commission is scheduled to hold a public hearing on Sept. 24 on Dominion Energy’s proposal for an electrical substation and transmission line less than 70 feet from people’s homes. The substation, which is needed to serve the data center, is going through a 2232 review process for public facilities.

Community action urged

This will be the first and only time the public will be able to participate in a hearing for this project, said Tyler Ray, president of the Bren Pointe Homeowners Association and a key opponent of the data center. Under the county’s zoning rules, a data center can be developed at the Plaza 500 site on a by-right basis, which means a public hearing isn’t required.

Related story: BoS backs data center industry on substations, rejects residents’ concerns

Dominion Energy is scheduled to present its proposal for the 2232 application at the Mason District Land Use Committee on July 28, 7:30 p.m., at the Mason Government Center. Alis Wang, the Mason District representative on the Planning Commission, and members of Mason Supervisor Andres Jimenez’s staff are expected to be at the meeting.

The Mason District Land Use Committee will make a formal recommendation at its Sept. 22 meeting on whether the Planning Commission should support or reject the 2232 application.

Ray urges community members to attend the MDLUC meetings on July 28 and Sept. 22 and the public hearing on Sept 24 and express their concerns.

Related story: State agency approves transmission line in Bren Mar Park

In 2022, the land use committee recommended denial of a rezoning application for the Plaza 500 property due to the negative impact of a data center on the surrounding community. “We need to ask them to keep consistent with this precedent as the substation is part of a complete data center campus that they previously recommended be denied for rezoning,” Ray said. 

“This decision has countywide implications given the precedent it would set for other 2232 applications,” he said. “We will need to put pressure on each of our supervisors to recognize this proposal as the outlier it is and reject it.” 

Starwood moves forward

On July 16, Starwood submitted an application to the county for a building permit for the first of two data centers it plans to build on Edsall Road.

The Plaza 500 South building would be nearly 226,500 square feet and 75 feet tall. The construction cost is estimated at $5 million. According to the Washington Business Journal, an affiliate of Starwood purchased the 34-acre Plaza 500 property in 2022 for $165 million.

Ray told the WBJ that Starwood is getting ahead of itself in moving forward with building plans before the substation is approved. “They are manipulating the process and going out of order intentionally to try to force the county to approve this despite the process not fully playing out yet,” he said. 

Loudoun County fights back

Meanwhile, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors will consider a motion at its Sept. 15 meeting to pause all data center applications until new zoning laws are put in place.

“Residents all across the county have said they want data center development severely constrained or stopped entirely,” said Supervisor Juli Briskman. “Loudoun became the data center capital of the world because data center development occurred with little oversight and before the full impacts of this industry were studied or understood.”

Loudoun County has 250 data centers occupying 53.3 million square feet. Briskman said, “Loudouners are tired of the visual and noise impacts, the costs to our electrical grid and wallets, and the harm to the very air we breathe.”