US data center firm PowerHouse is expanding its presence in Virginia with a new campus in Spotsylvania County.
The AREP-owned company this week announced the completed purchase of 145 acres in Spotsylvania to serve as the site of the PowerHouse 95 data center campus.
Located along the I-95 corridor and with two existing substations nearby offering imminent access to power – the company said PowerHouse 95 will have three 300MW substations, with the first currently under development and expected to provide 150MW by October 2025.
On its website, PowerHouse said the 95 campus will total up to 800MW across three substations, and see a maximum of eight three-story buildings built, totaling 3.5 million sq ft (325,160 sqm).
The site is being designed to appeal to "hyperscale users that seek well-located developments with access to power and good fiber connectivity,” said Doug Fleit, co-founder and CEO of AREP and PowerHouse. “This is the ‘speed to market’ that hyperscale users are demanding today and which provides low latency data transport options back to their campuses and peering sites in Ashburn.”
PowerHouse was founded in 2022. The company currently has a data center campus in Ashburn, Virginia, which was leased to CyrusOne in May 2023, and is planning developments on two other sites in the state in Loudoun County, in Sterling and Arcola.
The company also recently gained approval for a data center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Earlier this week the company announced plans for a new campus in Reno, Nevada.
“PowerHouse 95 is located at the epicenter of one of the fastest growing data center markets in northern Virginia,” said Michael Hochanadel, managing director and head of digital at Harrison Street. “This is yet another impressive venture between Harrison Street and PowerHouse and demonstrates our collective ability to identify high-quality solutions for the hyperscale community.
"Our ongoing partnership with AREP continues to accelerate the development of highly sought-after data centers that address increasing demand driven by high-powered computing, AI, and other advancements.”
While Northern Virginia is the data center capital of the world, Spotsylvania County, located south of Culpeper County, isn’t known for data center development. However, a number of new large-scale projects are being planned in the area.
Last year SpotsyTechnoCampus, LLC filed to rezone 315 acres in Thornburg for data centers and industrial warehouses. The SpotsyTech Campus could see up to 2.6 million sq ft of industrial development plus 300,000 sq ft of commercial and office space.
In June 2023, Amazon filed for four data center campuses totaling more than 10 million sq ft in the county: the Summit Crossing Tech Campus, the Carter’s Store Tech Campus, the Cosner Tech Campus, and part of the Orrock Tech Campus, all of which received re-zoning approval last October.
Another Spotsylvania application – known as Hunter’s Ridge and seemingly separate from Amazon’s applications – was given the green light around the same time last year. That project could see up to eight buildings developed.
