BREAKING: Amazon proposes third data center campus in Louisa County
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Amazon proposes 7.2 million square feet of data center buildings in central Louisa County
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has applied to build its third data center campus in Louisa County’s Technology Overlay District (TOD).
In an application filed with the county in mid-May, the tech giant requests permission to construct up to 7.2 million square feet of data center buildings on 1,370 acres just north of the Northeast Creek Reservoir in central Louisa. (land use application)
The sprawling, agriculturally-zoned tract (A-2), which is currently used for timber production, stretches from just south of Davis Highway (Route 22) to just north of Jefferson Highway (Route 33). It nearly touches Kennon Road (Route 665) at its southeastern end and School Bus Road (Route 767) near northwestern end.
The property is owned by former Louisa District Supervisor Eric Purcell, his sister, Virginia Purcell and their father, attorney and developer Charles Purcell, via Fisher Chewning, LC.
Data centers are large warehouse-like facilities that house the backbone of the internet, enabling cloud computing and other web-based services. They require vast amounts of electricity to keep their servers and networking equipment humming and, typically, large quantities of water for cooling.
To support the campus, AWS plans to work with Dominion Energy and Rappahannock Electric Cooperative to build seven substations on the property, which is bifurcated by a 230-kilovolt (kV) Dominion-owned transmission line.
The company could also construct water and sewage treatment plants, an elevated water storage tank, a central heating/cooling facility, a telecommunications tower, a food service facility, a security building, offices and other ancillary buildings, all of which could be permitted as accessory uses.
AWS is already building two data center campuses in the TOD, a special zoning designation adopted by the board of supervisors two years ago and aimed at attracting lucrative tech sector development.
One of the campuses, located at the corner of Kentucky Springs Road (Route 652) and Haley Drive (Route 700) adjacent to the North Anna Power Station, is slated for 1.7 million square feet of data centers. The other campus, planned for about 830 acres of a 1444-acre tract on the other side of Jefferson Highway just south of the reservoir, is expected to include more than two dozen data center buildings, according to county officials.
Unlike those projects, which are permitted by-right, AWS’s latest proposal requires a conditional use permit (CUP). The board of supervisors last year tweaked the rules for the TOD, mandating that future tech sector development move through a public approval process. Obtaining a CUP requires a public hearing in front of the planning commission and the board of supervisors and an affirmative vote by the latter body.
AWS and Louisa County’s Community Development Department will host a neighborhood meeting to discuss the proposal on Wednesday, June 11 at 4 pm in the Public Room at the Louisa County Office Building, 1 Woolfolk Ave., Louisa. The planning commission could consider the application as soon as its July 10 meeting.
A closer look at the project
According to AWS’s land use application, the 1370-acre campus would include up to 7.2 million square feet of data center buildings, mostly near the center of the property and surrounded by seven substations. It would leave 889 acres, or 64 percent of the property, as “open space,” including vegetative buffers, green space and stormwater management ponds.
Per TOD rules, the property would feature a minimum 200-foot vegetative buffer adjacent to residential uses; a minimum 250-foot buffer for substations adjacent to agricultural uses; and a minimum 300-foot buffer for data centers adjacent to agricultural uses.
Noise from the facility would be capped at 65 decibels at the property line during the day and 60 decibels at night, and buildings, excluding ventilation, cooling equipment, antennas and other appurtenances, wouldn’t be permitted to exceed 80 feet high.
The application notes that while the property is skirted by residential and agricultural uses, the data center buildings are expected to be at least 850 feet from the nearest home with extensive vegetative buffers offering protections for neighbors.
“An important component of this application is the Project’s preservation of existing vegetation. The Property currently contains mature pine trees, ranging in size from 2 years to 15 years old at a density of approximately 542 trees per acre. All vegetated buffers will contain these existing trees, and supplemental plantings will be provided as needed to ensure adequate screening is provided from adjoining properties,” the application says.
The site’s primary access point would be off Davis Highway via Shortmans Road. AWS could potentially construct a new road parallel to Shortmans, at the western edge of the Louisa County High School/Middle School Campus, per a preliminary site plan.
In addition, the property would be served by three other entrances: one off School Bus Road; another off Jefferson Highway, via Old CCC Road; and a third off Kennon Road, via Huntington East Drive.
AWS says that, at full buildout, the campus would draw fewer vehicles than other large-scale industrial uses but acknowledges that it would generate significant traffic during construction.
The company says the project would be built in a minimum of four phases, though it doesn’t provide a construction timeline, and that its four access points would help disperse traffic.
It plans to submit a detailed traffic management plan prior to each phase of construction; implement measures to avoid construction traffic during school bus travel times; and notify county officials 48 hours prior to any large construction-related deliveries.
The application doesn’t provide details on how much power the facility would use. But, according to site plans for AWS’s other projects, on-site substations can typically deliver 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity. So, seven substations could supply as much as 2.1 gigawatts (GW) of power. For perspective, North Anna’s twin Westinghouse reactors produce about 1.8 GW, enough electricity to power some 550,000 homes.
The application doesn’t detail how much water the project would use or explicitly state where that water would come. But, as with AWS’s other campuses, it’s expected to be drawn from the 187-acre, publicly owned Northeast Creek Reservoir.
According to a capacity study commissioned by the county two years ago, the reservoir has a safe yield capacity of 3.2 million gallons per day. It’s current users, including the Towns of Louisa and Mineral, draw about 300,000 gallons daily and 500,000 gallons at peak demand.
AWS’s other campuses are expected to use, on average, 660,000 gallons of water per day, mostly to cool the data centers. That draw could soar to more than 7 million gallons at peak demand, an AWS official told the planning commission. County officials have said “peak demand” refers only to the hottest days of summer and that the campuses would rely on ambient air temperature for cooling in winter.
For its latest project, the applicant says it “contemplates the use of direct, evaporative cooling for its industrial cooling requirements,” which is “more energy efficient than traditional mechanical cooling systems.” The project would also have on-site water storage “to capture water during periods of lower cooling demand” with stored water used during hotter months when the demand for cooling water rises.
To protect the reservoir from runoff, the campus would also incorporate stormwater management ponds adjacent to the impoundment. In addition to oversight from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the applicant plans to hire third-party consultants to review its erosion and sediment control plans prior to each phase of construction.
“The enhanced review process will supplement standard DEQ requirements and identify potential design gaps or vulnerabilities allowing for implementation of additional ESC measures with particular attention to the reservoir interface,” the application says.
While its 58-page filing is light on specifics, AWS contends that the project would benefit the community in a variety of ways and bring few negative impacts.
Most notably, the applicant highlights the economic benefits of data center development, pointing to a 2022 study from Mangum Economics, which estimated that 250,000 square feet of data centers would generate between $4 and $5 million in gross local tax revenue annually and directly create 30 jobs. The study isn’t included in the application, however, and it’s unclear if its revenue projections are based on assumptions specific to Louisa County.
In reference to AWS’s other projects, county officials have said that one data center building could generate more than $2 million in tax revenue a year over a 15-year time frame, mostly from real estate and business personal property taxes (BPP).
To lure AWS’s first two campuses, the board of supervisors adopted a $1.25 per $100 of assessed value tax rate for data center equipment—down from a $1.90 rate for most business personal property. It also implemented an accelerated deprecation schedule that taxes the equipment at 50 percent of its original cost when its new, declining to just five percent in its fifth year of use and every year thereafter. County officials have said that data center operators typically replace their equipment every six to seven years.
In addition, the county is offering AWS infrastructure and performance grants drawn from net new tax revenue produced by its facilities. Those grants work in concert with a state grant program aimed at encouraging data center development in rural areas.
AWS says the project would have limited impact on county services like schools and public safety, noting the campus would feature “extensive security and fire suppression systems.” As data centers typically have fewer employees than other large-scale industrial development, the applicant says the campus wouldn’t significantly increase demand for new roads, schools, parks and other services.
“Overall, data center campuses provide large, resilient revenue streams for local governments, while placing lower demands on local public services,” the application says.
Prior to positioning its property for data center development, Fisher Chewning, LC received a CUP from the board of supervisors to construct an up to 244 MW utility-scale solar facility at the site. But that project has been shelved in favor of what the applicant’s describes as the tract’s “highest and best use.”
“If approved, this Project’s CUP and [special exception] applications and all associated conditions will supersede the existing CUP, eliminating the solar facility use from this Property,” the application says.
Beyond its request for a CUP, AWS is seeking six special exceptions to the county’s Land Development Regulations, which the board of supervisors has the sole power to approve. The exceptions mostly relate to the project’s access points, some of which lie outside of the TOD.
As required by state code, AWS is also asking the planning commission to determine that the company’s plan to build public utilities—electrical substations and public water and sewer infrastructure—is in substantial conformance with the county’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan, a long-range planning document that lays out a vision for future development.
Note: AWS filed its application under the name of Amazon Data Services. Louisa County typically refers to the company as Amazon Web Services hence the references in this article.
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The Bos has gone completely crazy!!!!! They have taken a beautiful farm now and are turning it into a horrible site already and in the middle of homes on a major highway and now they want the rest of the land, we are becoming a city of buildings in the middle of our county that won't benefit any of the peoples! All the tax breaks they are offering affect our taxes being raised to pay for them and soon we won't have any country to live in!! Obviously they could care less what the people of Louisa want and won't listen to any reason. No one is running against them this voting period and they are destroying our county with all these big campus buildings. What happens to all the dreams of the people that want to live n the country, we are being sold out for the good of a few!!! Our traffic on 522 now is bumper to bumper all day long from the lake and The power plant, we can hardly pull out of our road now without having to wait for all the traffic to clear, then in the summer it is worse for all the boats, campers, and people going to the lake for entertainment! What are they going to approve next that we all have to pay for and put up with????? WAKE UP PEOPLE OF LOUISA!!!!!
Do the citizens of Louisa realize that this one building will be BIGGER than the Pentagon (7.2M DC vs. 6.6M sqft in the Pentagon)?