NTT Global Data Centers, the third largest carrier-neutral data center operator globally, today announced that it has acquired a 103.3-acre land parcel, on which it plans to develop a new 336-megawatt, 2+ million sqft hyperscale data center campus, in the Northern Virginia sub-market of Gainesville, Prince William County, Virginia.
In December 2021, Lerner Enterprises, a private owner and developer of real estate in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region, received a special use permit to allow for, what is now, NTT’s property to be developed for data center uses, under the project name I-66 & Route 29 Technology Park. Subsequently, in June 2022, the land was sold by Lerner Enterprises’ entities, Southview 66 LLC and Southview Adjacent LLC, to NTT Global Data Centers for $257.4m, implying a valuation of $2.49m per acre.
Gainesville, Prince William County, Virginia – NTT Global Data Centers
NTT Global Data Centers’ development project spans three distinct land parcels located at 14210 and 14300 John Marshall Highway, as well as 14181 Daves Store Lane in Gainesville, Prince William County, Virginia. Specifically, NTT’s 103.3-acre property is situated at the southeastern corner of the intersection of John Marshall Highway (Route 55) and Catharpin Road.
As shown above, NTT Global Data Centers’ site is adjacent to a mix of residential, industrial, and office land uses. Directly to the north of the site is commercial and industrial zoned land that is currently vacant. To the south are existing industrial, office, and hotel uses. To the east is a single residential use and an industrial use with a planned Dominion Energy substation. Finally, to the west of NTT’s site is warehousing, industrial, vacant land, and BlackChamber Group’s recently approved data center campus, also along John Marshall Highway, known as Village Place Technology Park.
Data Center Opportunity Overlay District
NTT Global Data Centers’ site is not located within Prince William County’s Data Center Opportunity Overlay District, where data center uses are allowed by-right. As such, a special use permit was obtained by Lerner Enterprises given the site’s B-1 zoning district.
In the map above, Prince William County’s Data Center Opportunity Overlay District is represented by the shaded light blue area to the east, which resides ~2,500 feet away from NTT’s site. Additionally, the dark blue parallel lines to the north of the Data Center Opportunity Overlay District are existing high-voltage transmission lines that connect into a Dominion Energy substation, which is directly adjacent to the eastern portion of NTT’s property.
Also worth noting, located at the top right of the map above, is a portion of the site for Patrinely Group’s 306-megawatt, 1.1 million sqft Gainesville Crossing Data Campus (GCDC) development project, which will be operated by Corscale Data Centers. This site, located at 13700 University Boulevard in Gainesville, Prince William County, Virginia, is situated ~1.5 miles east of NTT’s site.
Development
NTT Global Data Centers intends to develop 4, two-story data center buildings, with a maximum height of 75 feet. Collectively, these facilities will comprise 336 megawatts of power capacity across more than 2 million sqft of data center space. Notably, through its special use permit, Lerner Enterprises secured the ability to develop up to 2.96 million sqft of data center uses at the site.
In terms of timing, NTT plans to open the first two-story building of its campus in Q2 2024. Furthermore, based on prior work conducted by Lerner Enterprises, the full build-out of the data center campus could ultimately take at least 10 to 15 years.
Power
NTT Global Data Centers’ campus will be served by the adjacent Dominion Energy-owned parcel to the east, which will be home to a future substation.
Economic and Fiscal Impact
According to a prior analysis commissioned by Lerner Enterprises, the Gainesville data center campus, at full build-out and operation, would have the following economic and fiscal impact for Prince William County, Virginia:
- Employ from 500 to 630 people and support an additional 1,350 to 2,300 local jobs
- Pay and benefits supported by the data center campus would amount to $90m to $150m
- Data center campus would generate $34m to $65m annually in Prince William County tax revenue
NTT Global Data Centers – Overview
NTT Global Data Centers operates 7 campuses, comprising 13 facilities in the United States. Together, this portfolio offers 300+ megawatts of critical IT load across 2.3 million sqft (211k sqm).
Northern Virginia
Historically, NTT’s presence in Northern Virginia has been focused on Ashburn, Loudoun County, Virginia. Particularly, in Ashburn, NTT operates five data centers, with four more planned, over two campus locations. At full build-out, the Ashburn campus will offer 224 megawatts of critical IT load and 970k sqft of data floor space.
Notably, NTT’s Gainesville, Prince William County, Virginia data center campus will now become the company’s largest single campus in both Northern Virginia and North America.
Macquarie Asset Management – Partnership
In April 2022, Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) agreed to invest in and gain co-ownership of NTT’s wholesale data centers across Europe and North America. As part of this agreement, Macquarie secured the opportunity to invest alongside NTT to support its data center expansion in Europe and North America.
To this end, NTT notes that its Gainesville data center development project forms part of its global portfolio growth plan. Through this expansion, the company intends to increase its data center operations to more than 1,000 megawatts in over 20 countries and regions by the end of 2022.
Data Center Investment in Prince William County
In Prince William County, new capital investment in data centers has ranged from a low of $0 in 2009 to a high of $2.1bn in 2019. Moreover, data center investment accounted for the vast majority of all new investment in the county over this period – averaging 75% of all new capital investment each year.
Below is an illustration of capital investment in data centers in Prince William County from 2009 through 2019. These data center investment figures are compared to capital investment from all other industries in Prince William County.
New Capital Investment in Data Centers in Prince William County – 2009 to 2019
