A massive data center is planned beside homes near Alexandria. The power infrastructure may be the bigger fight.

The data center

The first filed building is about 226,000 square feet; the broader plan has two buildings.

Starwood Capital is pursuing redevelopment of Plaza 500 with two data-center buildings. The first filed building, Plaza 500 South, is described in July 2026 building-plan reporting as 226,469 square feet, two stories and up to approximately 75 feet tall.

The latest public Fairfax County PLUS record for SP-2024-00003 remains marked “Revised.” It describes two two-story buildings on approximately 34.16 acres and assigns 230,612 gross square feet to each—a combined 461,224 square feet. Earlier overall materials have been described as roughly 461,000 to 466,000 square feet across both buildings. The figures reflect different filings and measurement points; they describe a proposal in review, not a completed or operating campus.

The approval process

The data center and the power infrastructure do not follow the same approval path.

The data-center use has been reported as permitted by right under the site’s existing industrial zoning. That means the buildings do not go through the same discretionary rezoning vote that a typical rezoning proposal would. The site and building plans still move through technical county review, but the basic land use is not waiting on a traditional rezoning hearing.

The power infrastructure is separate. Dominion Energy proposes a new Edsall Substation inside the Plaza 500 property and a transmission connection running back toward the existing Van Dorn Substation. Dominion filed its State Corporation Commission application in 2024 and received the SCC’s Final Order approving the project on August 8, 2025. Fairfax County’s public-facility review is a different governmental process. Dominion’s current timeline anticipates substation construction beginning in 2027 and project energization in the second quarter of 2028, expressly subject to change.

Not every controversial development question ends in a public referendum or even a traditional rezoning vote. The useful question is: what approval is actually pending, and which public body has authority over it?

The public decision

The next listed Edsall hearing concerns the substation, not the entire data-center campus.

Fairfax County’s September 24 agenda, revised September 10, moves Dominion Energy application 2232-2025-MA-00007 at 6295 Edsall Road to December 2, 2026. Check the latest agenda before attending or submitting testimony. In plain English, a Virginia 2232 review asks whether the location, character and extent of a proposed public utility facility are substantially in accord with the County’s Comprehensive Plan.

Residents are not directly voting on the project. The Planning Commission is evaluating the public-facility application through the official county process. People who want to participate can review the application, register to speak, submit written testimony and use the Commission’s official meeting information. Learn the process. Read the application. Understand the arguments. If you want your voice heard, use the official testimony process and confirm the hearing date first.

The debate

Supporters and opponents are arguing about more than one thing.

Dominion says the Edsall project is intended to meet growing energy needs, comply with reliability standards, strengthen area reliability and minimize effects on the community and environment. Those are Dominion’s stated reasons for the project, not independent findings about every effect.

Residents have appeared at local land-use meetings and submitted opposition focused on proximity to homes, land-use compatibility, noise, lighting, visual effects, flooding and stormwater. Those are attributed concerns about potential effects, not findings that every effect will occur. Rep. Don Beyer requested denial in a July 30, 2026 letter, and Alexandria City officials have objected because City residences sit close to the Fairfax County site.

Opponents, including the Save Bren Mar coalition, have described the proposed substation as roughly 67 feet from the nearest residential use. That distance is an attributed advocacy claim, not presented here as an independently verified Fairfax County measurement. Dominion’s official project page also collects overview maps, land-use and land-cover maps, planned-building information, protected-open-space and wetland materials, the full routing study and its July 28, 2026 county presentation for readers who want to inspect the geography themselves.