Berry Hill project ‘on track,’ Stack official says, after governor’s data center crackdown
Members of the Danville-Pittsylvania County Regional Development Authority gather May 18 for a special meeting to approve a data center project for the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill.
DANVILLE — After Gov. Abigail Spanberger unveiled sweeping legislative proposals aimed at bringing more accountability to data centers, a company planning to make a record investment in Southside Virginia is applauding the transparency efforts.
Stack Infrastructure, a developer of data centers, is planning a $100 billion investment in the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill, which will include a digital campus that will employ 2,500 people over 20 years.
Spanberger announced the new Data Center Accountability Framework alongside an executive order on Friday.
It comes at a time of public backlash amid a proliferation of data center announcements across the state.
“In the years before I took office, data centers came to Virginia and the Commonwealth did not have a clear or coordinated plan to address their impacts on Virginians — on their electric bills, their water, their land, their air, or their quality of life,” Spanberger said in a statement.
Kevin Hughes, the chief external affairs officer at Stack Americas, said the company looks forward to working with Spanberger’s administration and the Virginia General Assembly on the proposals.
“Our commitment to Virginia remains unchanged, and we share the goal of growing the Commonwealth’s economy responsibly,” Hughes wrote in a statement to the newspaper on Friday afternoon.
“STACK’s project at Berry Hill remains on track as planned, representing a significant and meaningful long-term investment in Southside Virginia.”
The governor’s executive order would ban nondisclosure agreements with commercial data center projects with state agencies.
It would not pertain to local boards.
The agreements are common in economic development circles with any industry. Leaders sign a document that’s a virtual vow of silence until details are hammered out.
The executive order outlines that agencies must honor “existing contractual commitments and nondisclosure agreements.”
Among the governor’s proposals are to create standards for data center energy efficiency, water use, land use and backup generation. It also would help empower electric customers amid fears that data center power usage is being passed along to ratepayers.
Among the items in the proposal, the governor wants to eliminate by-right approval and require local boards to give the OK for data centers using more than 25 megawatts of power.
In mid-January, the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors approved rezoning the 3,500-acre Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill to its own designation.
Under the new zone, it automatically allows for things like data centers and power-generation facilities without a separate zoning hurdle.
Some spoke at the January meeting criticizing the accelerated pace at which the rezoning happened before the county planning board and the board of supervisors.
Ordinarily, things like this appear before the planning commission, allowing residents a chance to weigh in on the topic before that group makes a recommendation and then sends it to supervisors. The supervisors will get the matter a month later, offering another hearing before deciding the matter.
This time, it was one meeting for all of that to happen.
Those against the January approval were worried about the by-right uses folded into the rezoning, including power generation and data centers. They argued that those uses should be via special permits, which require yet another round of public hearings, increasing transparency for any project.
“Virginia’s Data Center Accountability Framework is about delivering a better deal for Virginians and holding data center companies, developers, and operators accountable,” the governor wrote in a statement. “The Framework is a thorough plan to end data center secrecy, protect our environment, lower energy costs for families, bolster our clean energy economy, and make sure Virginia workers have the protections and assurances they deserve.”
The development at the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill surfaced in an extraordinary manner. Usually things of this nature are kept under wraps until an official announcement comes from the governor’s office via a news release or an in-person visit.
The Stack project came into public view during a March 9 meeting of the Danville-Pittsylvania County Regional Development Authority.
The board approved a land sale agreement that includes details on the project, then valued at a $73 billion investment over 30 years with a little more than 2,000 jobs.
The unorthodox reveal came because Stack needed the agreement to work with Appalachian Power. It calls for a document confirming a minimum load capacity of 299 megawatts for the project to be provided by Dec. 31, 2028, by Appalachian Power.
On May 18, the board agreed to the principles of a local performance agreement with Stack for the $100 billion in investment over three decades and 2,500 jobs in a 20-year span.
Those updated numbers with the Berry Hill project match the parameters established by the General Assembly in 2023 that expand the sales tax exemption even further.
As the code is written now, a data center operator that enters into a memorandum of understanding to make at least $100 billion in investment and create at least 2,500 jobs shall be eligible for the exemption until June 30, 2050.
A month earlier, county leaders hosted a community meeting to outline the project in an effort they said was to bring transparency to the project.
The final local performance agreement was signed June 18, a Sunday.
The legally binding agreement outlines performance targets for a company and obligations for a locality.
In this case, there are no local incentives for the Stack project.
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