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Tag: Culpeper

Culpeper tech zone attracts data centers

A Dallas-based developer seeking to build its fourth data center campus in Virginia had a problem.

Finding sites large enough was getting difficult in Northern Virginia, where DataBank has two locations in Ashburn’s Data Center Alley and one in McLean.

“Virginia is still a solid data center market,” says DataBank Chief Operating Officer Joe Minarik. “We looked around and said, ‘Hey, where’s expansion still growing and land [still] available?’”

DataBank found 85 acres where it plans to break ground by early 2025 in the 690-acre Culpeper Technology Zone (CTZ). It offers access to fiber, electricity, incentives and workforce training.

“Culpeper tipped the scale for our ability to get there,” Minarik says. “And it’s already starting to develop. You’re seeing other data center providers grow theirs there.”

Those include Peterson Cos., Cielo Digital Infrastructure, CloudHQ and Copper Ridge. Additionally, Red Ace Capital Management received county approval July 2 to locate in the zone.

Culpeper County created the CTZ in 2021 to consolidate data center development in one place, streamlining power needs and curtailing expansion elsewhere. Developers who invest $10 million and hire at least 10 new employees there get a tax rebate of 40% over a five-year period, says Bryan Rothamel, Culpeper’s economic development director.

Also located in the CTZ are the Culpeper Technical Education Center and the Daniel Technology Center, offering trades and IT training relevant to building and maintaining data centers.

DataBank plans to build three facilities totaling 1.4 million square feet in the CTZ, with the first coming online around 2027 or 2028. It’ll need hundreds of workers to build them, and then 50 to 60 people to manage each building. Tenants will bring their own IT staff. Having nearby schools provide workforce training is a plus, Minarik says.

The CTZ also ticked boxes for Peterson Cos., a Fairfax-based real estate developer with 10 other data center projects. The zone’s ordinance anticipates the needs of data centers, and the CTZ isn’t near schools and dense residential development, so developers face less opposition, says Adam Cook, Peterson’s managing director of development.

Peterson won approval in 2023 to build eight data centers totaling over 2.05 million square feet on 150 acres there.

“Staff members and elected officials have listened to their community and preserved the rural nature of their community, while still making space for data centers,” Cook says. “It’s really a tribute to fantastic leadership.”  

DataBank to add leased data center to Ashburn campus

DataBank, a Texas provider of data center, cloud, and interconnection services, has signed a lease on a data center currently under construction on Red Rum Drive in Ashburn by GI Partners, the California investment firm announced Thursday. 

Two other data center buildings are already located on Red Rum Drive. One is owned by DataBank and the other other is owned by GI Partners, which invests in private equity, real estate and data infrastructure, and leased by DataBank, according to a spokesperson for DataBank. 

During construction of the new building, GI Partners will add an additional 29 megawatts of power to the site, according to an announcement.

“GI has a proven track record in strategically adding value to existing and newly acquired data center assets and this project adds to that long list,” Tony Lin, the firm’s managing director, stated in the release.

Construction should be completed by the second quarter of 2025, according to GI Partners. The data center is expected to be ready by the first quarter in 2026, according to a news release distributed by DataBank on Thursday.  

A spokesperson for DataBank did not comment on financial terms of the deal.

All three data center properties will be combined into a new data center campus encompassing 18 acres and 375,000 square feet of data center space, according to DataBank.

“This new site demonstrates DataBank’s ability to creatively source additional space and power in extremely constrained markets,” Raul K. Martynek, DataBank’s CEO, stated in the release. “By expanding this Ashburn campus, DataBank is responding to the Northern [Virginia] market’s surging need for colocation space and power that can support the [AI] applications of the future.”

In 2023, DataBank bought 85 acres in Culpeper, where the company plans to build three two-story facilities totaling 1.4 million square feet of data center space with 192 megawatts of power, the company stated. That campus is less than 50 miles away from the Ashburn campus, according to DataBank. 

GI Partners data infrastructure team primarily invests in “hard asset infrastructure businesses underpinning the digital economy,” according to the firm’s news release. It owns six data center buildings in Northern Virginia.

Thalhimer Multifamily adds management of five apartment communities

Thalhimer Multifamily has taken on management of five new properties, including two that expand the company’s reach into Culpeper and Front Royal.

The company, a division of Glen Allen-based Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, announced the management agreement for Charlottesville-based Hearthwood Apartments; Morningside Apartments in Richmond; Shenandoah Commons in Front Royal; and Southridge and Mountain View apartments in Culpeper on Oct. 1. The communities were previously managed by their owner.

The properties are a mix of garden and townhome styles, and the acquisition adds nearly 1,000 units and 25 associates to the Thalhimer Multifamily portfolio, bringing the residential management portfolio to more than 10,000 units in Virginia and North Carolina.

Manufacturing 2023: JONATHAN JENKINS

In 1976, Culpeper Wood Preservers started from a single location in Culpeper. Today, the company is a leading manufacturer of pressure-treated lumber products for the residential, commercial, industrial and marine markets, with 17 locations around the East Coast and in Indiana and Tennessee. A 1990 East Carolina University graduate who was recruited by the Chicago White Sox, Jenkins pitched for Minor League Baseball teams for six years and worked as a coach and scout. Then he left baseball for a career in lumber. He joined Culpeper 17 years ago and became president in 2016.

In November 2022, Culpeper acquired H.M. Stauffer & Sons, a fourth-generation family business in Leola, Pennsylvania, increasing its reach in that state. Also, the company purchased Massachusetts-based Northeast Treaters in July 2022, as well as properties in Tennessee in 2022 and in Maryland and Massachusetts in 2021. The company employs about 600 people.

Downtown Culpeper mixed-use property sold for $3.95M

The Waters Place mixed-use property in downtown Culpeper has been sold for $3.95 million, Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer announced this week. The redevelopment and new building at 201 Waters Place includes 25 residential units and nine commercial spaces.

Waters Place sits on half an acre and includes a renovated warehouse from circa 1900, as well as the South Building completed in 2018. Commercial tenants include the Beer Hound Brewery, Wine and Design, and Velo Concepts Café. The property was purchased from OPRE Culpeper LLC as an investment, and John Pritzlaff and Jenny Stoner of Thalhimer handled the sale negotiations on the seller’s behalf. The firm said it could not divulge the buyer’s name.

The property was appraised at $1.89 million in 2020, according to Culpeper records.