Reston-based developer WestDulles was unsuccessful in its appeal of a county staff determination that it needs a conditional use permit to build a data center campus on hundreds of acres in James River Industrial Center. (BizSense file images)
For at least the second time this year, the Chesterfield Board of Zoning Appeals has blocked a developer’s challenge to the county’s conditional-use permit requirement for data center projects.
The BZA last week denied WestDulles Properties’ appeal of a county staff determination that the developer needed a CUP to build a data center campus at 1500 Battery Brooke Parkway in James River Industrial Center.
At issue were restrictions created by Chesterfield’s new zoning ordinance that took effect this year that force proposed data center developments on industrial properties to go through the CUP process, including public hearings and case-by-case reviews by county supervisors. Under the previous ordinance, data centers could be built by right on industrially zoned land.
Attorney Brendan O’Toole of Williams Mullen, who represented WestDulles at the BZA hearing, argued the company had vested, grandfathered development rights to build a by-right data center campus on the Battery Brooke property despite changes in zoning policy in part due to several written determinations by county staff in recent years that stated the property was zoned I-3 Heavy Industrial, where data centers were a by-right use.
O’Toole argued WestDulles had further met the legal burden to establish its vested rights because the company had spent a sizable amount of money on the project, including site work, hiring engineers and working with Dominion Energy to bring power to the site.
“That right, to build data centers on this property, vested long ago and (WestDulles) has expended significant money in reliance of the planning director’s prior determinations that data centers were by-right use of the property,” O’Toole said.
WestDulles claimed that the early December 2025 written determination that prompted the appeal was made in error because it didn’t address the company’s vested rights. Chesterfield Deputy County Attorney Andrew Fulwider disagreed with that argument.
Fulwider said a vested rights claim wasn’t specifically made in a September 2025 letter from WestDulles that prompted the late December written determination, rather, he argued it was merely a request to confirm the site’s zoning, so vested rights weren’t considered. And ultimately, Fulwider argued, the developer didn’t meet the legal standards that establish vested rights anyway.
Fulwider said the developer’s letter didn’t specify a particular project, rather checked on the permissibility of multiple uses, and that the county’s response didn’t qualify as a project approval.
“It was not an approval of a specific data center project. The request that came in listed data center, office and warehouse uses as the intended uses. That could mean a variety of things,” Fulwider said.
The BZA voted 4-0 on Wednesday to reject the appeal. Chairman John Caperton felt the developer’s zoning confirmation request was too broad and worked against its claim that it planned a specific project at the site.
“You’re trying to hang your hat on a specific project when you have said here clearly, to me, we are proposing as our intended use data center, warehouse and office,” Caperton said, referring to the appellant’s letter.
The denial followed the submission of the appeal late last year. Reston-based WestDulles is weighing its next move, which could involve legal action.
“We respectfully disagree with the BZA’s decision and we’re evaluating all our legal options, including an appeal to the circuit court,” WestDulles CEO Eric Wells told BizSense on Thursday. Wells declined to comment further.
A map of the data center campus included in a mass grading plan filed by WestDulles last year.
The WestDulles property in James River Industrial Center is a 550-acre, multi-parcel assemblage that also includes 1120 Battery Brook Parkway. LLCs tied to the company have controlled parts of the property since 2021, and assumed ownership of the entire assemblage in 2024. It’s unclear from county records how much WestDulles paid for the land. The property was converted to Employment General (EG) and Warehouse & Distribution (WD) when the new zoning ordinance took effect.
WestDulles filed mass-grading plans for the data center campus in 2025, which described the project site as a 170-acre area and showed a 260-acre future phase of development. The filings didn’t show how many data center buildings would be built or the project’s overall square footage. WestDulles had previously filed plans on part of the overall assemblage for a warehouse project codenamed Project Gale in 2024.
The rejection of the WestDulles appeal followed the BZA’s move in June to deny a similar appeal from a different developer seeking to build data center facilities on Old Bermuda Hundred Road.
The BZA decisions come amid growing scrutiny of data center projects in Chesterfield and beyond. Chesterfield officials said in August the board of supervisors wouldn’t approve future data center proposals, as Google moves forward with plans to build multiple data center facilities across the county.
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