QTS inquired into developing a data center campus along Pageland Lane, outside of the county’s designated Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District, as early as the summer of 2020.
Discussions included the Prince William County Department of Economic Development, despite the fact that such development was at odds with the county’s stated land use policy. QTS signed a non-disclosure agreement with Economic Development and their proposal was not revealed to the public until February 8, 2022.
On September 9, 2022, a QTS attorney signed a 31-page letter rescinding prior assurances made during the review of the Prince William Digital Gateway proposal. This letter was not unveiled until the eleventh hour of a Planning Commission public hearing after public comment had concluded.
More broken promises were evident in QTS’ Digital Gateway rezoning application of January 19, 2023, where it was revealed that data center buildings adjacent to the Manassas National Battlefield Park would be 75 feet high instead of the promised 45.
Now QTS is embarking upon a disingenuous public relations campaign claiming honorable intentions. When a demonstration was planned yesterday to call out their hypocrisy, QTS spin doctor Nick Blessing characterized it as “civil disorder.”
More like civic engagement, which QTS prefers to usurp.
QTS, who rode into town cloaked in secrecy, oozing deception and flaunting exploitation, now tries to repackage themselves as our benevolent saviors. Nobody is buying it, and it’s getting embarrassing to watch.
They need to click their heels together and go back to Kansas. Maybe their lawyers can figure out how to write this Prince William Digital Gateway fiasco off as a tax loss.
Bill Wright
Gainesville
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The second scheduled public meeting about a proposal to build 20 data centers on 876 acres near the Manassas National Battlefield was canceled late today.
QTS, the firm proposing the complex, announced the cancelation of the public meeting scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn in Haymarket. It's the second time in two weeks that a public meeting for the proposed data center complex is scheduled in western Prince William County.
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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.
The principal at Bull Run Middle School near Gainesville, the site of an open house for a proposed data center next to Manassas National Park tomorrow, April 18, 2023, canceled the event. We first reported the event on Saturday, April 15, 2023.
Instead, the school will host an open house for parents of rising sixth-grade students. “I am not sure of the mix-up, but it is corrected,” states school principal Matthew Phythian in an email.
The 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.
The 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.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 18, at Bull Run Middle School, 6308 Catharpin Road, near Gainesville.
QTS already operates at least one data center in Prince William County, next to the George Mason University Science and Technology Campus near Manassas.
