Starwood Pays $4M an Acre to Build Data Centers in Fairfax County, Va.

The Board of Supervisors in Virginia’s Fairfax County have agreed to sell an “underutilized” section of the county’s police training campus in Chantilly, ostensibly for more data center development. 

The county will sell roughly one-third of the 128-acre campus at 3721 Stonecroft Boulevard to an affiliate of Starwood Capital Group for $166.8 million. The deal for the 42-acre parcel will enter into a contingency term until early 2027, according to the Business Journals, which first reported the news. 

Starwood’s exact plans for the site were not immediately clear, though the county has indicated that the Miami-based developer aims to build a data center. Indeed, Starwood is actively developing a roughly 60-acre data center campus not far from the Chantilly property, dubbed Renaissance Technology Park. The developer late last year filed plans to extend that project by another 400,000 square feet on 8 acres it purchased from Word of Grace Christian Church in 2023 for $25 million. 

The Chantilly site does not include entitlements or land-use approvals for new data center development. A spokesperson for Starwood did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The site remains an important location for police training, but the current facilities are spread out in a way that leaves portions of the property underutilized,” the county said in its February announcement of the potential deal. “By moving and grouping these facilities together, the county can free up land to sell. The funds from the sale will defray costs to ensure Fairfax County has a modern police training facility.”

The county estimates that a potential data center development could generate more than $20 million in tax revenue within its first year of operation. Proceeds from the sale will support the redevelopment of the aging police training center, and will include a new criminal justice academy, firearms training grounds, driver training infrastructure, K-9 unit training zones and other improvements, per the county. 

If the sale is finalized, construction of the new police facilities are expected to occur from mid-2028 to early 2031. 

Fairfax County is hardly the only entity selling rural land in Northern Virginia for outsize returns, particularly as data center development continues to ramp up in the region. Last month, Baltimore-based Merritt Properties sold a roughly 40-acre parcel in Ashburn to data center developer Cologix for $375 million. Late last year, meanwhile, Chuck Kuhn’s JK Land Holdings traded 97 acres in Leesburg to SDC Capital for an eye-popping $615 million. 

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.