Hey Northern Virginia, happy belated 4th of July! While many celebrated America's 250th, a new data center battle is heating up right here in Prince William County. Tomorrow, July 7, supervisors will decide on a massive 1,940-acre proposal that could transform rural Gainesville into a giant data center campus.

The Dulles South Innovation Center by Sanders Lane Assemblage seeks to rezone 252 parcels from agricultural to mixed-use, paving the way for up to 443 million square feet of data centers, a new substation, thousands of trips, and major infrastructure demands. County planning staff strongly recommends denial, citing infrastructure shortfalls, environmental damage, tree loss, and conflicts with rural character.

This comes right after the QTS Digital Gateway project near Manassas National Battlefield collapsed—Compass pulled out ea ...