MAGA-connected data center developer wants to move forward with Northern Virginia project

A data center outfit owned by the leveraged buyout firm Blackstone Group is trying to push forward with plans to build a digital gateway adjacent to Manassas National Battlefield Park, though its legal challenge to an appeal court ruling blocking the 2,100-acre project has been derided by one observer as a “98-yard Hail Mary.”

“QTS is fighting a losing battle and prolonging the inevitable. But since it insists on seeking the opinion of the Supreme Court of Virginia, we come armed with the fundamental resolve and strong legal defense that have sustained us through this yearslong battle to ensure this catastrophic complex will never see the light of day,” said David Duncan, the president of the American Battlefield Trust, which on Thursday sent out a press release touting how it is urging the state Supreme Court to reject the last-minute request for an appeal from QTS.

QTS – the initials stand for Quality Technology Services – was founded in 2003; in 2021, it was purchased by Blackstone Group, whose co-founder and CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, is a political ally of Donald Trump and MAGA megadonor.

You don’t pay tens of millions in political donations to not get your way, and for the longest time, QTS was getting its way on its Prince William Digital Gateway – the plans for which feature 37 data center buildings, the equivalent of 144 Walmart Supercenters; the cluster of buildings would require 14 on-site electrical substations for operation, projected to consume 9 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 2 million homes.

The Prince William County Board of Supervisors voted 4-3 in 2023 to rezone the property targeted for the development, in the waning days of the political terms of two pro-data center supervisors whose terms were about to expire.

A Prince William Circuit Court judge ruled that the rezoning vote should be voided due to improper public notice ahead of the 2023 Board of Supervisors meeting; the Virginia Court of Appeals affirmed the lower-court ruling on March 31.

The appeals-court ruling gave the defendants in the case – QTS, fellow developer Compass Datacenters and the county – an April 30 deadline to appeal.

The county, through an unanimous Board of Supervisors vote on April 14, withdrew from the suit; Compass dropped out of the proceedings on April 28.

But QTS filed an appeal on the deadline day, April 30, and is moving forward – or is hoping to move forward.

The Supreme Court still needs to decide whether it wants to hear the case; movement there isn’t likely to come until the fall.

“QTS is fighting a losing battle and prolonging the inevitable,” Duncan said. “But since it insists on seeking the opinion of the Supreme Court of Virginia, we come armed with the fundamental resolve and strong legal defense that have sustained us through this yearslong battle to ensure this catastrophic complex will never see the light of day.”