MANASSAS, VA – Just weeks after the Prince William County Board of Supervisors voted to drop out of the legal fight to bring a massive data center to the county, one of the developers of the project has abandoned the effort as well.
In a statement April 29, Compass Datacenters, one of a pair of developers working on the controversial project, said “Compass has reached the unfortunate conclusion that we cannot move forward with the Prince William Digital Gateway project. While we still believe this project offered significant benefits for the region and our neighbors, recent legal actions and compounding regulatory hurdles have effectively closed a viable path forward.”
This leaves data center company QTS as the last entity standing in the five-year effort to install a massive data center in the county’s Gainesville area, near the Manassas National Battlefield Park.
QTS has not issued a statement on the matter.
The effort was dealt what might have been its death blow on March 31, when the Virginia Court of Appeals upheld a ruling against the project. The county government dropped out of the legal effort in April. Now, QTS has until Thursday, April 30 to petition the Virginia Supreme Court to hear their case, the Prince William Times reports.
The Prince William Digital Gateway project has been fought ferociously by community members for years, and opponents began to turn the tide on the project when they challenged the December 2023 rezonings that cleared its path. The project envisioned a huge technological hub of more than 35 data centers spread over 2,100 acres. Community members successfully argued before state courts that the county had not allowed adequate public notice ahead of the hearing that approved the rezoning.
The Prince Williams Times reports that Compass Datacenters’ withdrawal from the legal appeal will probably nullify the sales contracts more than 90 property owners signed in 2022 to sell their land to developers for the project. It notes that whole neighborhoods in the Gainesville area were under contract to developers.
Already several property owners are suing to get out of those contracts, the outlet reports.
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