Amazon has proposed 900,000 square feet of new data centers in western Prince William County. Due to the COVID 19 outbreak that spread throughout the US, many businesses changed to a remote work strategy and for Amazon, this shows that there is a growing demand for cloud services and that the company needs to increase its capacity to satisfy this demand.
Consequently, in order to build a new data center campus on 59.6 acres in Bristow, Virginia, between 11479 and 11540 Nokesville Road, Amazon Data Services submitted an application in which they asked for a rezoning and special-uses permit.
“As the immediate area around the property has grown increasingly commercial in nature, larger and long-term changes in technology have occurred as well… Those changes have only accelerated in the past decade. More affordable technology and a shift to cloud computing has encouraged more businesses to adopt, and employees to embrace, hybrid work-from-home models. Online retail has fundamentally changed customers’ relationship to traditional retail.” Amazon said in its request.
The company stated that data centers are an essential part of the new internet infrastructure and that these changes are likely to last for the foreseeable future, especially in light of the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, land use patterns and real estate demand are adjusting.
“The industry has been a welcome source of investment in many communities,” the application continued. “Data centers create long-term technology jobs and short-term construction jobs. The use generates real estate taxes and, in Prince William County, the computer and peripherals tax. Relative to most uses—in particular office, retail and residential—data centers demand little in terms of public services and generate few vehicle trips.”
Furthermore, according to Amazon, data centers have improved with time, “often resembling a typical office building” and exhibiting more environmentally friendly architecture.
“The development of data centers is a desirable and important component of the modern commercial corridor,” the application said.