At a glance
- John McAuliff, 34, became the county's newest state delegate this year after winning an election largely on a platform to limit future data center construction.
- An allocator buying land in the Dulles corridor faces a nine-member Board of Supervisors whose approvals set a parcel's value.
- Mike Turner, vice chairman of the Board of Supervisors, told Commercial Observer the county has held AAA ratings from every bond agency for 15 years, ranks among the fastest-growing U.S. counties, and has built 10 schools in the last eight.
Loudoun County, Va., collects $1.3 billion a year in corporate and real estate tax revenue from its 253 data centers and has one dairy farm left, Commercial Observer reported Oct. 26. They occupy 49 million square feet, about 25% of U.S. data center development, according to the outlet.
John McAuliff, 34, became the county's newest state delegate this year after winning an election largely on a platform to limit future data center construction. "When Dulles was built in the 1970s, it was built on a farm. Loudoun County used to have more dairy farms than anywhere else in the country. There is now one left," he said. "Today, we have more data centers than anywhere else in the world."
An allocator buying land in the Dulles corridor faces a nine-member Board of Supervisors whose approvals set a parcel's value. A bill this month would have stripped approvals from 15 grandfathered projects — roughly 10.5 million square feet across 30 buildings — and Loudoun tabled it, this publication reported. The county budget depends on the same buildings the delegate campaigned to limit.
Mike Turner, vice chairman of the Board of Supervisors, told Commercial Observer the county has held AAA ratings from every bond agency for 15 years, ranks among the fastest-growing U.S. counties, and has built 10 schools in the last eight. Median household income exceeds $170,000 across 440,000 residents, and property taxes are the lowest in the region, the outlet reported.
This publication reported in September that Prince William's smaller data center overlay and Maryland's new review layer made entitlement, not power, the binding constraint for private sponsors and their lenders. Loudoun adds the fiscal half: the buildings are the county's revenue line and the thing its newest elected official campaigned against. Dozens more projects are already approved for future development, the outlet reported. That makes the next approval vote a revenue decision as much as a land-use one.
Reported by the Sectors desk. Published . Corrections