This audio is automatically generated. Please let us know if you have any comments.
Dive brief:
- Dublin-based data center developer Chirisa plans to build a new facility in Chesterfield, Virginia’s Meadowville Technology Park. The 139,000-square-foot facility will initially have a capacity of 20 megawatts and is expected to eventually double to 40 megawatts.
- The The project is on track to be at least $240 million investment: Chirisa CEO Lee Hayes told Richmond Biz Sense that the company anticipates it will cost about $12 million per megawatt to build data centers in the Richmond market.
- DPR Construction is the general contractor for the project, according to the site plan filed with Chesterfield County.
Diving knowledge:
According to the site plan, Dallas-based Gensler is the project architect, and Richmond, Va.-based Timmons Group was tapped to handle civil engineering for the new building. If permission is granted for the project to move forward, construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025. DPR declined to comment on the project.
The new data center will complement Chirisa’s existing 242,000-square-foot facility in the Meadowville Technology Park, formerly owned by Capital One. It is currently being upgraded to 18 megawatts from its current capacity of 6 megawatts and working on the waiting for the update to finish in June, according to Data Center Dynamics.
Chirisa is also looking to build a third data center in the technology park at the 300,000-square-foot site of an unfinished industrial project at 1600 Digital Drive. It was supposed to be a factory for the Mexican packaging company Cartografbut it has been stuck in legal limbo for several years and was recently the subject of a court-ordered sale.
Hot data center market in Virginia
A dear 70% of the world’s internet traffic travels through Fairfax and Loudoun counties in northern Virginia, earning the area the nickname “Data Center Alley.” Decades of government and private investment in the area, as well as abundant access to land, water and workers, make the region an attractive place for large companies to set up their data centers.
Recent projects in the area include a $242 million, 250,000-square-foot facility that Skanska is building for an undisclosed client. Clark Construction Group is building a 24 megawatt data center in Ashburn, Virginiafor NTT, a Japanese IT services and infrastructure company.
Amazon has invested heavily in the area. Last year, Amazon Web Services said it’s under construction a 250,000-square-foot data center in three buildings in Manassas, Virginia, according to InsideNova. The company also unveiled plans in Sterling, Virginia, to demolish nine office buildings at three locations to make room for four data centersaccording to Loudon County land applications accessed by Construction Dive.
