County’s planning staff recommends denial of massive data center project again

The Prince William County staff have again recommended the denial of all three rezoning requests associated with the PW Digital Gateway data center project. This comes after two rejections of the rezoning requests by QTS and Compass in recent months.

County staff said in a report, “At this point, no one truly knows what site challenges will come up that may alter the site layout. It is possible that enough engineering has been done by the Applicant to know that the site layouts can be met, but that is not demonstrated on the [master plan]. Thus, when it comes time to review and approve the final site plans, the County’s Project Managers are going to do the best they can with what is truly an illustration in an effort to get some form of conformance.”

Compass Datacenters said in a statement, "We have received the County Staff report published on December 7, and while we disagree with Staff's conclusion, we appreciate their time and feedback on our amended rezoning application."

QTS also said, "The Prince William Digital Gateway will boost tax revenues and support the County’s educational and public safety priorities, and we remain optimistic that the Supervisors understand the value of the project and will ultimately approve the Digital Gateway next week.”