Prince William County: data centers & powered land

Zoning

• The Board of County Supervisors adopted the DCOZOD zoning text amendment DPA2026-00006 on September 22, 2026, closing the overlay to any future expansion.^[1]
• The overlay is expected to shrink from about 9,700 acres to roughly 3,641 acres, a staff estimate based on properties that qualified as of Aug. 31, 2026, and the Board vote was unanimous.^[2]
• Owners in the existing overlay have a 90-day window to file qualifying applications, and the county will publish an updated overlay boundary map after the final eligibility period closes on December 21, 2026.^[1][2]
• In August 2025 the Prince William Circuit Court voided the Digital Gateway rezonings over improper public notice, and the Virginia Court of Appeals upheld that ruling on March 31, 2026.^[6][3]
• In February 2026 the county announced an interactive data center map showing projects from pending applications to completed buildings, with acreage, planned square footage and zoning case numbers.^[7]

Power & transmission

• The SCC approved Dominion's Daves Store 230 kV double-circuit line in the Gainesville area on October 28, 2024 (case PUR-2024-000021), with construction completion anticipated in Spring 2027.^[8]
• Dominion is planning the Nokesville-Bristow project, a 230 kV line along a 6.5-mile stretch linking the Nokesville Substation to a planned Bristow Switching Station, and must submit a preferred route to the SCC.^[9]
• The county estimated 862 MW at completed turnkey data center buildings and 660 MW for buildings under construction in its 2024 data center revenue report.^[10]

Utilities

Campuses

Incentives & taxes

• For fiscal 2027 the Board set the tax rate on data center computer equipment and peripherals at $4.50 per $100 of assessed value, up from $4.15 in fiscal 2026.^[4][5]
• The county reports data centers generated a preliminary $293.7 million in total tax revenue in tax year 2024, including $123.9 million from computer equipment and peripherals.^[10]
• Virginia's sales and use tax exemption for data center equipment, available since 2010, was worth $928 million in tax savings to the industry in FY23 according to JLARC.^[11]

Water

No sourced facts in the directory yet.

Fiber

No sourced facts in the directory yet.

Local sentiment

• The Oak Valley Homeowners Association and the American Battlefield Trust brought the main lawsuits that voided the Digital Gateway rezonings, and the Board later voted to end the county's appeal.^[6]
• QTS affiliate GW Acquisition Co. withdrew its appeal petitions on July 2, 2026, and the 2,100-acre Digital Gateway, planned for 23 million square feet, was reported as officially dead.^[3]
• Residents protested the proposed Nokesville-Bristow transmission line in 2026, and the Board said it would not provide easements or county property for two of the routes.^[9]

Known gaps

• The final reduced DCOZOD boundary map will not be published until after December 21, 2026.
• No published water use figures for Prince William data centers were found.
• The share of county data center load served by Dominion versus NOVEC could not be confirmed.
• Street addresses for the Iron Mountain Manassas campus and Devlin Tech Park were not published in sources reviewed, so no coordinates are given.
• Whether the Planning Commission's recommended 500-foot setback was included in the adopted overlay amendment is unclear from the county page.

Other Virginia counties

• Culpeper County
• Chesterfield County
• Fauquier County
• Henrico County
• Loudoun County
• Louisa County
• Spotsylvania County
• Stafford County