Developer withdraws Hanover data center campus proposal

Developer HHHunt withdrew its application for a 10-building data center campus in Hanover County, supervisors announced Wednesday night.

Hunting Hawk Technology Park was recommended for denial by the county Planning Commission on Jan. 15. The project, set to be built on the Hanover-Henrico county line near western Henrico’s Wyndham neighborhood, drew opposition from Hanover, Henrico and Goochland county residents, some of whom spoke at the Planning Commission meeting.

Increased traffic, water use, noise and other environmental impacts were among the concerns.

HHHunt, which has corporate headquarters in Blackburg, Glen Allen and Cary, North Carolina, sought to rezone the 468-acre property from agricultural use to light industrial use to allow the project to move forward.

A November 2025 presentation by the developer said that the project would include 10 buildings as large as 330,000 square feet each, three electrical substations to connect the data centers to the power grid, plus perimeter buffers and landscaping. The project was not set to include a wastewater treatment plant or on-site power generation.

According to HHHunt’s estimates, the county would have received about $6.5 million in annual tax revenue from 2026 to 2036, the project’s completion date, and after 2036, the average revenue for the county would be about $11.9 million a year.

“I just want to take an opportunity to let everyone know that myself and the planning director were notified this afternoon of the withdrawal of the proposed data center along Ashland Road,” Susan Dibble, Hanover’s South Anna District supervisor, said at Wednesday night’s meeting, when supervisors also issued a statement opposing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan for a detainee processing facility in Hanover.

Dibble’s announcement drew loud applause from the audience.

She noted the site was near a golf course and said the proposal was “simply not a good project in the right place.”  She added that the project was not in compliance with the county’s comprehensive plan, and there was no way to get beyond that.

“All along my seven years sitting in this seat, I have told people how much I believe in the process that we have,” Dibble said. “I believe it’s transparent, and I also believe that … this process that we have, which includes community meetings and a lot of public input, makes a good project better, and it weeds out the bad projects, and we have weeded out this one.”

HHHunt did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.