Spotsylvania has approved 15.5 million sq ft of data centers
The county's own August figures show 1,104 industrial acres left under a proposed 45% cap, and its page still lists the cap as a draft.
Spotsylvania County has approved 15,469,908 square feet of data centers, and 1,104 acres remain under the 45% industrial-land cap the county is proposing, according to figures posted on the county's Data Center FAQs page. The figures are dated August 2026.
The county counts 6,003 acres of industrially zoned land. A 45% designation equals 2,701 acres, and approved data centers cover 1,597 of them. The draft policy would be reassessed at the next five-year plan update or when construction starts on 75% of entitled data center projects, a threshold the county puts at 11,602,431 square feet.
The same page still describes the 45% policy as a draft within the Spotsylvania Comprehensive Plan update's public hearing process, with hearings "expected in fall 2026," and lists no Planning Commission recommendation or Board of Supervisors vote on it. The Virginia Pulse reported Oct. 27 that supervisors were scheduled to vote that evening, according to FXBG Advance. As of Nov. 13, no county document opened for this story states the outcome. The county's acreage figures also differ from the 6,106 industrial acres and 1,756 approved acres cited in that earlier report, which relied on the Fredericksburg Free Press; this story uses the county's numbers.
The county's rules have tightened in steps. The Board of Supervisors prohibited permanent use of potable water for industrial cooling on Nov. 14, 2023. On Dec. 9, 2025, it limited by-right data centers to Industrial 1 and 2 districts, and on Feb. 24, 2026, it eliminated by-right data centers, so a special use permit is now required in all Office, Commercial and Industrial districts. The county's current data center land use policies were approved July 11, 2023.
Two data center cases are pending on the county's Active Public Hearings page: special use permit SUP26-0003 for the Crossroads Technology Campus data center and rezoning case R25-0014 for the Pairmont Data Center Campus. The page lists no hearing dates. A Nov. 17 Board hearing on Crossroads was reported by FXBG Advance, but the date has not been confirmed in a county document.
Spotsylvania is one of Virginia's busiest data center counties, and the county's own ledger shows how much room the proposed cap leaves before the Board takes up Crossroads, the largest pending application.
What's next
- Nov. 17 Board of Supervisors hearing and vote on Crossroads SUP26-0003 (date reported by FXBG Advance; not confirmed in a county document)
- Fall 2026 Comprehensive Plan public hearings (no dates posted)
Sources
- Spotsylvania County: Data Center FAQs (August 2026 figures)
- Spotsylvania County: Active Public Hearings
- Spotsylvania County: SUP26-0003 Crossroads Technology Campus case page
- The Virginia Pulse: Spotsylvania votes tonight on plan capping data center land at 45% (Oct. 27)
- The Virginia Pulse: Spotsylvania to vote Nov. 17 on 555-acre Crossroads data center campus (Nov. 10)
How we source: sources and corrections.
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