Chirisa is planning a new data center in Chesterfield County, Virginia.
The company's Chirisa Technology Parks subsidiary has filed for planning permission to build an additional facility at Meadowville Technology Park, outside Richmond.
According to a report in Richmond Biz Sense, Chirisa will spend a “nine-figure sum” on the 139,000 sq ft (12,913 sqm) data center with an initial 20MW of IT capacity. This could eventually double to 40MW.
If permission is granted, construction work on the site is set to be completed by late 2025, with DPR Construction appointed as general contractor for the project, working with architects Gensler and civil engineering firm Timmons Group.
It will complement Chirisa’s existing data center at Meadowville Technology Park, a 242,000 sq ft (22,480 sqm) facility, which is currently being upgraded to 18MW from its existing 6MW capacity. Chirisa purchased this data center from Capital One, which built the site, in 2020 and is marketing it as a potential hyperscaler location.
Work on the upgrade project is expected to be completed in June.
Chirisa is also seeking to build a third data center at the technology park, and has formed a joint venture with American Real Estate Partners to purchase a 300,000 sq ft (27,871 sqm) partially constructed folding and microcorrugated packaging plant at 1,600 Digital Drive.
The plant was announced by printing company Cartograf in 2019, but was never completed, leading to lawsuits from two other companies involved in the project, Choate and the Comerica bank. Subsequently, a court ordered the property be sold so that the claims of these businesses could be satisfied, and the Chirisa JV successfully bid $16.5 million for the site.
However, Cartograf is seeking to block the court-ordered sale, and has until mid-May to file a $990,000 bond as part of its appeal. Richmond Biz Sense reports that, as of Monday, it had yet to do so.
If the sale goes through, Chirisa plans to demolish the factory and build a data center of a similar size.
The company operates eight data centers in the US through its Digital Fortress subsidiary.
