NoVa data center development moves down I-95

At the start of 2025, Stafford County’s economic development director, Liz Barber, predicted that data centers could go from zero to “a lot” within three years’ time.

One year later, the county is proving her case.

Three data center projects totaling more than 7 million square feet are under construction now in Stafford, including Colorado developer Vantage Data Centers‘ $2.2 billion, three-building campus, one of the state’s largest economic development announcements in 2025.

Vantage’s project is on Centreport Parkway, a fast-growing industrial hub located along Interstate 95 near Stafford Regional Airport. Announced in November 2025, the campus is set to include 929,000 square feet and add between $115.4 million and $116.7 million in annual property tax revenue, which totaled $316 million in the past fiscal year.

What’s more, Stafford County has 18 data centers in the pipeline. Long known for warehousing and distribution, the county’s position just south of Ashburn’s “Data Center Alley” and Prince William County has received greater interest in the past year from data center developers.

‘You’re going from zero to potentially 18 in a relatively short period of time, bringing in an entirely new sector,” Barber says.

Vantage broke ground on the 82-acre development in November and is expected to deliver its first building in 2027. The project, known as VA4, is anticipated to bring 1,100 construction and 50 permanent jobs to the county, and will increase the company’s campuses in the commonwealth up to four, with about $8 billion in combined investments. The other three campuses are in Loudoun County.

Vantage did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article, but in a news release, President Dana Adams said Stafford’s proximity to major metro regions, access to infrastructure and resources drew it to the county.

VA4 comes amid other high-dollar announcements as developers spread south along I-95 from their nexus in Loudoun, which, at 49.5 million square feet and with another 6 million additional square feet under development, is reaching capacity.

A couple weeks after Vantage’s announcement, Texas-based CleanArc Data Centers announced it would invest nearly $3 billion to build three 490,000-square-foot data centers on the 650-acre former Virginia Bazaar shopping center site in Caroline County.

Approved by-right by Caroline supervisors, CleanArc is expected to deliver its first building in 2027, with others to follow in 2030 and 2033. This project represents about $8.8 billion at completion, the largest deal in Caroline County’s history, County Administrator Charles Culley Jr. said in an email. In 2023, Amazon Web Services committed to spend $35 billion in the state by 2040, a deal that includes $6 billion to build a data center project spanning Spotsylvania, Caroline and Stafford.

Data centers have been no stranger to opposition, especially in Northern Virginia. In November 2025, a judge blocked the start of construction of the Prince William Digital Gateway, ruling in favor of a group of neighbors who object to the 2,100-acre development, although opponents, developers and the county were still battling it out in appeals court in February.

Billed as the world’s largest data center complex, the project is set to develop 23 million square feet of the centers near Manassas National Battlefield Park. Meanwhile, at the end of 2025, a lobbying firm filed an early application tied to another massive data center proposal in the Gainesville district, hoping 1,930 acres will be zoned for industrial use.

Erin Sanzero, president of the nonprofit Protect Stafford, says she is concerned the county could become the next Data Center Alley. Her group supports responsible siting and development of data centers, and Sanzero says Stafford officials were not prepared for the large number of applications that would rezone residential or agricultural land to industrial uses.

“How do we walk that delicate balance between economic development and falling off a branch that we sit by shoving incongruent land uses on top of each other?” Sanzero asks.

In October, Stafford supervisors approved a 750-foot setback for new data center development, grandfathering in five already approved projects. Protect Stafford supports the buffer but is concerned about a paragraph that could allow county supervisors to reduce the setback, Sanzero says.

Stafford supervisors who have data centers under construction, approved or proposed in their districts did not respond or declined to comment for this story.

Barber says the county is “cautiously optimistic” about data centers. “The character of Stafford County is important, and I don’t think the county wants to be a Data Center Alley,” Barber says.