Another data center campus has been proposed around Bristow in Virginia’s Prince William County.
A filing with the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Norfolk District shows Sharpless Enterprises LLC is looking to develop an 181-acre data center park.
The company is looking to construct a ‘restricted data center campus and associated infrastructure’ on land on the north side of Wellington Road and west of Piney Branch Lane. The site is located south of CoreSite’s Manassas campus and the proposed PW Digital Gateway project from QTS and Compass. A Novec substation is located close by on the south side of Wellington Road.
Details on the project – referred to in some documents and the Virginia DEQ site as the ‘CUB Project’ – are scarce, but site plans suggest three large data center buildings, a smaller fourth facility, and an on-site substation.
The filing states the site was formerly used as a military facility. The US EPA notes the site was previously operated by Atlantic Research Corporation (ARC). Part of the land was sold to Sharpless Enterprises, LLC in 2017.
The development would result in the loss of just over one acre of wetland and 1,400 ft of stream channels.
The company behind Sharpless Enterprises isn’t clear. The company’s address is registered to Corporation Services Company, a services firm hyperscalers often work with to obfuscate their involvement.
Amazon this year submitted two special-use permit requests for a roughly 2.2 million sq ft (204,385 sqm) campus on about 117 acres at 5845 and 5945 Wellington Road - the western side of the former ARC site and directly next to Sharpless’ proposals.
Microsoft has also acquired land nearby on the opposite side of Piney Branch Lane and on Wellington Road to the east and south of Sharpless’ proposals.
Google has a data center campus in development around a mile south of the site.
According to the EPA, the ARC facility operated as a solid fuel rocket propellant and rocket motor production plant primarily under contracts with the DoD from 1951 to 2005, after which it was decommissioned.
Early operation of the facility was conducted by Susquehanna Corporation, until ARC became the operator in February 1972. Operations included rocket and missile production, testing, research and development, and thermal treatment areas for the disposal of waste propellant.
