Data center developer picks up 66 acres in White Oak for $8M

A global data center company with a campus in Northern Virginia has bought into Henrico’s White Oak Technology Park.

Iron Mountain Inc., a data center developer and information management company based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, purchased 66 acres at 6110 Technology Creek Drive for just over $8 million earlier this month.

Henrico’s Economic Development Authority was the seller in the deal, which was recorded with the county Nov. 1.

Iron Mountain, a 73-year-old firm that trades on the New York Stock Exchange, has developed data centers in Europe, India and the U.S., where it has facilities in 11 markets, including a 142-acre data center campus in Northern Virginia.

The campus in Prince William County is planned for nine data centers and has five operational so far totaling 2 million square feet, according to Iron Mountain’s website.

A request to the company seeking comment on the White Oak purchase and plans for that site was not returned Tuesday.

Henrico EDA Director Anthony Romanello confirmed the sale but deferred to Iron Mountain for further comment. He said the site had been actively marketed since White Oak opened in 1996. An assessed value was not reflected in the county’s online property record for the site.

White Oak Technology Park in eastern Henrico. (BizSense file photo)

The 66-acre site is along Elko Road and beside the Bank of America data center on Technology Creek Drive. It’s also next to LL Flooring’s 1 million-square-foot distribution center, which recently sold to data center giant QTS for $104 million as part of the Henrico-based retailer’s recent bankruptcy filing and transition back to Lumber Liquidators.

QTS owns an existing data center campus nearby in White Oak and in the past year has added over 600 acres along Williamsburg Road in two deals totaling more than $136 million.

Iron Mountain’s deal adds to a surge in data center investment and development across Virginia in recent years. It also tees up more potential revenue for Henrico’s recently launched housing trust fund to address housing affordability in the county.

Earlier this year, around the time of their approval of data center use for the 622 acres now owned by QTS, Henrico supervisors established the housing trust fund with an initial $60 million in previously unbudgeted revenues from data centers. Revenue from existing and future data centers is to be used to support the trust fund going forward.

Last month, the county announced the first two projects to qualify for the trust fund program, including HHHunt’s Parkside Townes, a 123-unit townhome development in Sandston. Twenty-five of those units are to be set aside for first-time homebuyers with household incomes between 60-120% of the area median income.

Azalea data center project withdrawn

In other Henrico data center news, a 27-acre project planned for the area around the Azalea Flea Market has been withdrawn by applicant BWS Enterprises. BWS had been working with Atlanta-based developer DC Blox, which was planning a 10-megawatt data center and potentially a second, 40-megawatt facility on the site at Azalea Avenue and Richmond Henrico Turnpike.

A rezoning request for the project was scheduled to go before county supervisors at their meeting Tuesday night. The Henrico Planning Commission had recommended denial at its meeting last month.

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