Danville, Pittsylvania authority approves Berry Hill land sale to data center developer

Members of the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority unanimously voted Monday to approve an agreement to sell property at the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill to SAC III Acquisition, according to Matt Rowe, director of economic development for Pittsylvania County.

The entity shares an address with Denver-based Stack Infrastructure, a global developer and operator of data centers, which has billed itself as the largest private data center developer in Virginia.

The agreement allows SAC III Acquisition to purchase “certain parcels or portions of real property in the authority’s Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill project … known as ‘Track HK,’ and the option to purchase those certain parcels or portions known as Lots ‘AB, CDE, FG, J and 10′ and Lots ‘The Harrison Place’ and ‘Oak Hill,’” according to the meeting’s agenda packet.

Pittsylvania County did not immediately release a copy of the agreement detailing the number of acres to be sold Monday.

Each acre of property at the megasite will cost $238,000, according to information included with Monday’s meeting agenda.

The RIFA will consider a local performance agreement with the company as a separate resolution, according to the agenda packet.

In a statement to Virginia Business Monday, Stack Infrastructure thanked the RIFA officials, state lawmakers, the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership for developing the megasite “for economic development at a transformational scale.”

“Today’s agreement builds on Stack’s longstanding presence and continued investment in Virginia, a core market for our digital infrastructure portfolio,” Stack Infrastructure said in a statement Monday. “We are excited about the potential project opportunity in Danville and Pittsylvania County.”

In early 2025, Stack Infrastructure announced it had raised $4 billion in financing for a data center in Stafford as well as campuses in region and Canada. The Stafford data center campus will sit on 500 acres, feature four sub-campuses and house a total of 19 data centers, according to the company.

Laying the groundwork

The megasite at Berry Hill was a major topic of discussion at a Jan. 15 joint meeting of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission. 

The specially created zone differs from existing designations in that it allows heavy industrial developments at the megasite by right, meaning entities such as data centers and power stations could be built on the site without further public hearings. 

Jeff Love, who lives in the Staunton River District, complained at the January joint meeting that the agenda wasn’t published online until one day before the meeting. 

Typically, the Planning Commission holds a meeting where members listen to public comments on an issue like a rezoning and then vote to make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors. A few weeks later, supervisors hold their own meeting, again hearing from citizens, before taking their own vote. 

“Through tonight’s quickly developed joint meeting, the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission are intentionally bypassing proper procedures and are demonstrating to county citizens that they cannot be trusted,” Love said.  

At that January meeting, Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors Chairman Robert M. Tucker Jr. addressed citizen remarks about a lack of transparency, saying that members of the board had signed a nondisclosure agreement. 

“We have to be somewhat reserved in the information that we can share,” he said. “At some point, the citizenry has to trust or have some faith in this board. You elected us. You ask us to make the hard decisions.” 

Amy Walker, a Pittsylvania County resident who opposed the rezoning, said at the meeting that “data centers can be an invasive industry,” which could quickly take over the megasite, excluding other businesses. 

She spoke on behalf of the Coalition for the Protection of Pittsylvania County, which was formed in response to Herndon-based Balico’s effort last year to build data centers on 750 acres in the county. The proposal failed amid deep local opposition. 

Darrell Dalton, a member of the Board of Supervisors, recalled at the January meeting that some citizens objecting to the Balico project had said that data centers belonged in areas surrounded by industry. 

“A year or so ago, we heard it loud and clear that anything we wanted to do, it needed to be in an industrial park,” he said. 

Matt Rowe, the economic development director for Pittsylvania County, said at the January meeting that the aim of the new designation is to provide the regulatory flexibility necessary to entice companies to open up shop at Berry Hill. 

He said “monolithic” factories are a thing of the past and that several industries eyeing the site have said they want a more “campus-style” work environment, complete with “restaurants and breweries, hotels, dry cleaning, self storage,” and even veterinary services. 

The Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill is owned by the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority. The authority’s members, Rowe said at the January meeting, have been “patient and deliberate” in pursuing tenants for the site. It is only interested “in facilitating transformational development.” 

“Other projects that are actively considering the site would result in thousands of full-time jobs, thousands of construction jobs and billions of dollars of direct taxable investment,” Rowe said. 

Since its creation in 2008, more than $217 million in private and public funds have been invested in the megasite, Rowe stated at the meeting.  

“Here we have an opportunity to kind of get some return on the investment,” Tucker said at the meeting. “How many times have I heard we get awfully close to this announcement, and then the rug … gets pulled from underneath the entire county? So, I’m going to support the motion.” 

So far, the only announced tenant for the Berry Hill megasite is Microporous, which said in November 2024 that it would invest $1.35 billion to build a lithium-ion battery separator facility at the site. 

In February, Rowe told Virginia Business that Microporous would likely begin construction this spring.