Amazon Drops Ashburn GW Campus Data-Centre Plan

Amazon has withdrawn its plan to build four data centres on George Washington University’s former campus in Ashburn, Virginia, and has agreed not to go to court to revive it. Under a deal announced by Loudoun County Board Chair Phyllis Randall on Tuesday evening, the company will instead give the county roughly 25 acres with a fair market value of about $65m. It will also rezone the rest of the 122-acre site for housing and mixed use.

Amazon bought the campus earlier this year for $427m and had filed a site plan for four data-centre buildings, which Supervisor Juli Briskman, whose district includes the site, vowed to fight “every step of the way”, WTOP reports. Its retreat comes in a county where, Amazon says, it has been building in partnership for 20 years.

Amazon gets a housing scheme instead of four data centres

“My goal was to disallow any data centers or infrastructure that could support data centers on this property,” Randall said in her statement. “Amazon has agreed to withdraw its proposed application and — of note — forego any legal action to realize data center development on this site.” She named the agreement “Project Potomac Promise”.

The 25 acres are earmarked for a new community arts centre and indoor sports facility. According to the county’s news release, reported by WTOP, that land “will become a district that prohibits data centers and related infrastructure, even by special exception”. Amazon will also put $5m into the county’s Housing Fund. From 2027, Loudoun will join Amazon’s Built Together programme, which the company announced on 2 October with a pledge to add “more than $1 billion over the next five years” for communities near its data centres. In Loudoun, the programme will fund community college tuition and fees for students in fields including electrical trades and healthcare, WTOP reports.

The plan Amazon has dropped was for four buildings totalling more than 800,000 sq ft, according to DCD. DCD says the campus was bought on a five-year sale-leaseback, giving the university time to move out.

The deal headed off a fight over the site’s zoning

The two sides did not agree on what Amazon was allowed to build. Earlier this month, county staff told supervisors that Amazon would need further approval before starting any data centres, citing a zoning finding that they were not permitted as a primary use on the property, DCD reports. Amazon disagreed. “While we see the property’s legal development potential differently than the County does, we concluded that the best outcome for all is to come together on a shared vision for this campus rather than engage in costly litigation,” Josh Weissman, Amazon’s vice president for data center delivery, said in a statement quoted by WJLA.

Supervisors voted to fast-track the new plans, but the details are still open. “Expedited does not mean there won’t be a process,” Dulles District Supervisor Matt Letourneau said, according to WTOP: the rezoning still goes through the Planning Commission and the board, with traffic and environmental studies. Leesburg Supervisor Kristen Umstattd cast the only vote against fast-tracking, warning that nobody yet knew how many homes, or what school and road costs, would follow.

A legal question became a negotiation

The striking part of the deal is what Amazon gave up without a ruling. It says its reading of the site’s development rights differs from the county’s, yet it chose to walk away and add land and money rather than test that reading in court. Amazon’s own explanation is that a shared plan was better than “costly litigation”. Whatever the merits of its zoning case, the outcome is that the county’s reading of the site now stands unchallenged, and the donated land will be closed to data centres even by special exception. For other owners of former campus or office land in Loudoun, that is a precedent worth studying.

The deal also shows how the terms of local approval are shifting. Amazon is handing over land for an arts centre and $5m for housing as part of walking away from a site it owns. TSN has tracked similar pressure elsewhere: Oregon’s governor has asked its environmental regulator to pause data-centre permits, Memphis has voted for a 135-day pause, and President Trump says large data centres are “mandated” to make their own power. Amazon, for its part, is looking further afield for energy, with plans to explore 12 small modular reactors in Indiana.

None of this ends Amazon’s presence in Loudoun, where it says more than 3,400 of its employees live. The next step is the rezoning application. That filing should finally show how many homes Amazon plans for the remaining land and how soon the county’s design meetings begin.