Buyer walks away from $750M New River Valley Commerce Park deal
A company that proposed $750 million in industrial development, including a data center, on 475 acres in Pulaski County let its purchase contract expire after missing an Oct. 5 closing.
A company that agreed to buy 475 acres at the New River Valley Commerce Park in Pulaski County, with plans that included a data center, has let its contract expire. New River Valley LLC had until Monday, Oct. 5, to close on the land and did not, according to Michael Solomon, executive director of Virginia's First Regional Industrial Facility Authority, which owns and manages the park.
The buyer had proposed $750 million in investment over 10 years for industrial uses such as manufacturing and a data center, though no data center end user had been identified. Payments were set at about $1.6 million, with $580,000 already in escrow; the authority is likely to keep the escrow money, Cardinal News reported. Solomon said he does not know why the company backed out, and the company did not respond to Cardinal News.
The authority has 11 member governments: Bland, Craig, Giles, Montgomery, Pulaski and Roanoke counties; the cities of Radford and Roanoke; and the towns of Dublin, Pearisburg and Pulaski. Tax revenue from development at the park is shared among members in proportion to their prior investment, with Pulaski County receiving the largest share. No new developer has been identified, and the authority is assessing other options.
State money for the site is still on the table. Pulaski County was expected to receive $15 million in state general funds in 2025 for utility infrastructure at the park; that was later cut to $7.5 million, which has not been spent and was carried into this year's budget.
The deal's collapse comes as Southwest Virginia localities weigh data centers. In Wythe County, a 99-acre AI and data center campus is under construction at Progress Park, and in Carroll County, supervisors voted Oct. 5 against an amendment that would have shifted decisions on the Wildwood Commerce Park, where an $11 billion data center is planned, to a regional authority, WSLS reported. In Roanoke County, the regional authority that owns Wood Haven Technology Park withdrew this month from a nondisclosure agreement tied to a 94-acre data center sale.
The New River Valley Commerce Park is one of the largest publicly owned industrial sites in Southwest Virginia, and 11 localities share in whatever is built there. The expired deal reopens the question of what the site becomes, and whether a data center is part of it.
What's next
- Oct. 15 Public meeting on data centers, 6-8 p.m., New River Valley Fairgrounds, Dublin (questions submitted in advance by email)