Alexandria asks Fairfax to block data-center substation

Alexandria city leaders have moved from general opposition to a formal request for Fairfax County to block a piece of infrastructure tied to a planned data-center campus just outside the city line. In an Aug. 3 letter, Mayor Alyia Gaskins wrote on behalf of the full Alexandria City Council asking the Fairfax County Planning Commission to deny the Edsall Data Center Substation 2232 application, which would help power the Plaza 500 project in Lincolnia. The request puts Alexandria’s elected leadership directly into a Fairfax land-use fight that has already drawn organized neighborhood opposition and a separate letter from U.S. Rep. Don Beyer. The next key date is Sept. 24, when Fairfax’s Planning Commission is scheduled to review the substation application. ### What exactly did Alexandria ask Fairfax County to do? Mayor Alyia Gaskins asked Fairfax County’s Planning Commission to reject the substation application, not merely delay it. ALXnow reported that Gaskins sent the letter on behalf of the entire City Council and argued that the project represented “the incompatibility of heavy industrial use” near densely populated Alexandria. (alxnow.com) The council’s letter framed the issue as one that crosses jurisdictional lines. It said data centers, substations and other industrial uses may be approved locally, but the effects — including noise, environmental impacts, energy use, water use and quality-of-life concerns — are felt more broadly, according to ALXnow’s account of the letter. (alxnow.com) ### Which project is this substation tied to? Starwood Capital Group filed permit and building plans in July for Plaza 500 South, the first of two proposed data-center buildings on the 34-acre Plaza 500 site at 6299 Edsall Road in Lincolnia, just outside Alexandria’s West End. Local reports said the first phase would be a 75-foot-tall building spanning 226,469 square feet. (alxnow.com) Dominion Energy’s proposed Edsall Road substation is intended to serve that project and connect to the existing Van Dorn substation. FFXnow reported that transmission lines between the proposed Edsall Road substation and the Van Dorn substation have already received approval from Virginia’s State Corporation Commission, while the substation itself still requires county review. (alxnow.com) ### Why is the substation, rather than the data center itself, the immediate flashpoint? Fairfax County’s zoning rules are a central reason. FFXnow reported that data-center development on the Plaza 500 site is allowed by right under the site’s permitted zoning, meaning the main building proposal does not go through the same kind of public approval process opponents had hoped would stop it. (ffxnow.com) Fairfax County updated its data-center ordinance in 2024. The county says the Board of Supervisors adopted a zoning ordinance amendment on Sept. 10, 2024, with the changes taking effect the next day. Because the data center may proceed under existing zoning, residents and elected officials have focused on the substation review as a public decision point. FFXnow said the Edsall Road substation is the piece now before the Planning Commission through a public-facilities 2232 review. (ffxnow.com) ### Who else is pressing Fairfax to deny the application? (fairfaxcounty.gov) U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, whose district includes Alexandria, sent his own letter to the Fairfax County Planning Commission on July 30. Beyer said he had “serious concerns” about the project’s effects on residents and wrote that data-center infrastructure should not be built in residential areas where its scale and impacts are incompatible with nearby neighborhoods. (ffxnow.com) Tyler Ray, president of the Bren Pointe Homeowners Association and founder of the Save Bren Mar Coalition, has also emerged as a public face of the opposition. Local coverage said Ray and other residents have argued that the project’s effects would not stop at the Fairfax-Alexandria boundary and that Alexandria residents have increasingly joined the pushback. (beyer.house.gov) ### What are opponents saying the impacts could be? Alexandria’s letter listed noise, environmental effects, energy use, water use and quality-of-life concerns. Beyer’s letter separately cited land use, flooding mitigation, light pollution and noise pollution, and questioned whether the proposal fits Lincolnia’s growth goals. (alxnow.com) Residents have also tied the substation fight to broader worries about the larger data-center campus. Those concerns, as described in local reports and Beyer’s letter, include how industrial-scale infrastructure would sit near existing homes and whether county rules meant to buffer neighborhoods are being met in practice. ### What happens next in Fairfax County? (alxnow.com) The Fairfax County Planning Commission is scheduled to hold the Edsall Data Center Substation 2232 review on Sept. 24 at 7 p.m. FFXnow reported that the commission will consider whether the project’s location, character and extent are in substantial accord with the county’s comprehensive plan, and that Dominion Energy could appeal to the Board of Supervisors if the commission rejects it. (ffxnow.com) Separate from the substation case, site plans for the data-center buildings themselves are moving through Fairfax County Land Development Services, according to earlier local reporting. That means the Sept. 24 hearing is likely to be the next public milestone involving Fairfax County planners, Dominion Energy and opponents from Lincolnia and Alexandria. (alxnow.com) (ffxnow.com)