Virginia landowner JK Land Holdings has purchased 108 acres in Ashburn for data center developments for $180m, the Washington Business Journal reports.
The land in question is at 19508 Freedom Trail Road in Ashburn, Loudoun County, and was purchased from homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc., which previously planned to build around 1,300 apartments and townhouses.
During Toll Brothers' recent earnings conference, CEO Douglas Yearly referenced the sale, saying: "We had a unique piece of property in Northern Virginia that we were processing for approvals to build homes on, and a data center operator came along and made us an offer that we couldn't refuse."
According to JK Land Holdings, the developer is "in the early stages of working with the county on a development plan."
Toll Brothers previously submitted a plan that would see two data centers spanning nearly 1.1 million sq ft (102,195 sqm) developed on the site and a substation, but it is unclear if JK Land Holdings will pursue the same plan.
The site is positioned within the Route 7 corridor where county supervisors have been seeking to increase regulatory constraints on data centers in the last few years.
Since December 2023, all data centers in that zone require approval from supervisors to be developed. Before the change, companies could develop data centers within the zone by right, within certain parameters. Because the Toll Brothers' earlier application occurred before this, that site plan would be held under the old rules.
Next door to the land purchased is the Loudoun Freedom Center, a burial ground for the formally enslaved, JK Land Holdings is working alongside the center to ensure compatibility.
JK Land Holdings, along with JK Moving Services (an office moving company), are both owned by Chuck Kuhn, a prominent landowner in the county.
JK Land Holdings also purchased land in Virginia's Prince William County in September 2023 with plans to further expand a planned data center campus. The company is also involved with the Yondr data center campus in Loudoun County, which broke ground on its second 48MW data center building this month.
Elsewhere in Loudoun County, data center developers including Stack, Prologis, and Peterson Co. are currently working on data center projects.
