Kuhn continues moving Loudoun projects forward

It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for Chuck Kuhn lately as he tries to rezone land for flex industrial use in Leesburg and Purcellville.

The CEO of JK Moving Services and JK Land Holdings, Kuhn is one of Northern Virginia’s most prominent data center developers and land conservationists, having purchased swathes of property in Loudoun County to keep the land rural. But his reputation as a data center builder has run into growing opposition from residents who oppose more data center development in Northern Virginia.

In Leesburg, Kuhn has proposed to rezone and redevelop the 7.6-acre site of the shuttered Westpark Golf Club hotel and conference center into an 86,400-square-foot flex industrial building. The site neighbors a golf course that Kuhn sold to Loudoun County in 2022 to be turned into a public park.

Kuhn’s development proposal — approved 5-2 by the town council in July — faced scrutiny over the project’s scale and appearance, as well as truck noise levels.

Another concern was whether the building would become yet another data center; Kuhn’s team later changed the plan to exclude data centers as a permitted use for the land.

Work on the building’s site plan and design are underway, and in mid-August, Kuhn said he expects both proposals to be presented to the town for approval by late September. “We’re hoping that we’re demolishing the old building within the next six months,” Kuhn said.

Progress in Purcellville has not gotten as far.

Town council members there voted 4-3 in late July to continue gathering information before deciding on Kuhn’s application to annex and rezone land outside town to develop the Valley Commerce Center. Like Kuhn’s proposal in Leesburg, he has offered a plan that would not include a data center.

Concerns with the Valley Commerce project include water usage, location suitability and traffic increases, according to Purcellville Town Council member Caleb Stought, who voted against the application.

Kuhn’s project will add an estimated 3,500 trips per day to roads “that are already prone to significant congestion and gridlock,” Stought says.

Kuhn has also filed a rezoning application with Loudoun County. In August, JK Land Holdings purchased the 25-acre Telos Corp. headquarters site in Ashburn for $60 million — and that could be a potential space to develop data centers, although Kuhn hasn’t said what he intends for the site.