Data center town hall cancelation: ‘We were never notified of another event’

QTS, the firm aiming to build a data center next to Manassas National Battlefield Park, had planned to hold a town hall meeting about the development last night, April 18, 2023, at Bull Run Middle School near Gainesville.

However, as we reported Monday, April 17, a Prince William County school said the school was double booked with the town hall meeting and a back-to-school night for parents of rising 6th-grade students.

The school had inadvertently double-booked the schedule (human error). The organization is looking to find another location to host the meeting and that information will be shared once confirmed.

— Prince William County Public Schools spokeswoman Diana Gulotta statement to PLN

Residents opposed to more data centers had planned a demonstration outside the school before the event began.

In a statement to PLN following our story about the cancelation, QTS spokesman Nick DeSarno said it’s working to reschedule the event, that the firm had the event on the books since late last month, and only learned of the back-to-school night on the day before its scheduled event.

“QTS Data Centers was today notified by Bull Run Middle School that a conflicting event at the school would necessitate the cancelation of QTS’ open house despite school officials last week confirming the QTS event. As a result, QTS is working to reschedule the event to provide the Prince William community with important information about the PW Digital Gateway project and its many benefits to the county,” said DeSarno.

The April 18 QTS Open House event had been planned since late March. Throughout the planning process, QTS Data Centers (QTS) was never notified of another event scheduled for the same day or anything that may disrupt QTS’ Open House event. The following timeline lays out the planning of the event, coordination with Bull Run Middle School staff, and the subsequent cancellation of the event.

• March 30, 2023: On March 30, QTS submitted a request to hold the event via the school’s automated scheduling system, Community Use.
• April 3, 2023: On April 3, QTS received confirmation the event had been approved. Following confirmation, QTS coordinated with Bull Run Middle School staff to arrange a tour of the school and specifics of the event.
• April 13, 2023: On April 13, QTS toured the school and confirmed the logistics of the event with school staff.
• April 17, 2023: The morning of April 17, QTS received a notification from the Community Use scheduling system that the event had been canceled. That same day, the school calendar was updated with the event entitled, “Rising 6th?Grade Information Night,” scheduled for Tuesday, April 18.

The data proposed data center would sit on some of the more than 800 acres earmarked by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, approved last year, for Prince William Digital Gateway.

Residents opposed to more data centers in Prince William County, on track to eclipse neighboring Loudoun County for the most in the world, were planning a press conference to oppose the project “The attitude of Prince William County residents, and our message to QTS, is simple and concise: go away.  We are not buying their insincere overtures to placate us while they concurrently plot to destroy us,” they noted in a press release.

QTS already operates at least one data center in Prince William County, next to the George Mason University Science and Technology Campus near Manassas.

In November 2022, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors amended its comprehensive plan to allow 27 million square feet of data center space next to the national battlefield park, the site of two major Civil War battles, a national tourism destination.