Northern Virginia Data Center Market: Site Selection Guide
Northern Virginia is the undisputed capital of the global data center industry. With approximately 4,900 MW of commissioned capacity and vacancy rates below 1%, the market processes more internet traffic than any other geography on Earth. Loudoun County alone hosts more data center capacity than most countries.
But the very forces that made Northern Virginia dominant are now creating challenges that every data center developer must navigate carefully.
Market Overview: The Numbers
According to CBRE's H1 2025 North American Data Center report, Northern Virginia's key metrics paint a picture of extreme demand against tightening supply:
Commissioned capacity: ~4,900 MW
Vacancy rate: 0.72% — effectively zero functional vacancy
Under construction: 1,200+ MW
Average asking rent: $140–$170/kW/month for wholesale, trending upward
Pre-leasing rate: Over 90% of space under construction is pre-leased
These numbers reflect a market where demand has structurally outpaced supply for three consecutive years, driven primarily by hyperscale cloud providers and AI compute requirements.
Power: The Defining Constraint
Power availability is the single most critical factor in Northern Virginia site selection — and the single greatest risk.
Dominion Energy, the primary utility serving the region, has publicly acknowledged that data center load growth is straining transmission and distribution infrastructure. New interconnection requests in some areas of Loudoun and Prince William counties face timelines of 36–48 months or longer, compared to 12–18 months just three years ago.
The implications for site selection are profound. A parcel with excellent location, zoning, and fiber connectivity is worthless for data center development if power cannot be delivered within the project timeline. Successful site selection in Northern Virginia now requires detailed utility infrastructure analysis — mapping substation capacity, transmission line routing, and queued interconnection requests — before any other criteria are evaluated.
Some developers are responding by looking at adjacent jurisdictions — Fairfax County, Stafford County, and areas along the I-66 corridor — where power infrastructure is less constrained. Others are investing in on-site generation or exploring direct utility partnerships to secure dedicated capacity.
Land: Scarcity Drives Prices and Creativity
Data center-suitable land in core Northern Virginia markets now commands $2–4 million per acre in Loudoun County, with premium sites near existing fiber and power infrastructure exceeding $5 million. These prices have tripled in five years.
Developers are increasingly pursuing creative land strategies: assemblages of smaller parcels, rezoning of agricultural or office-zoned land, adaptive reuse of obsolete commercial properties, and ground leases from institutional landowners who want exposure to the asset class without selling.
AI-powered site selection excels in this environment. Screening hundreds of parcels against zoning compatibility, power proximity, fiber access, and assemblage feasibility simultaneously identifies opportunities that manual search methods miss.
Fiber and Connectivity
Northern Virginia's data center dominance was built on connectivity. The market sits at the intersection of major submarine cable landing stations and terrestrial fiber routes, offering unmatched carrier density and low-latency connections to major population centers.
Site selection must evaluate carrier diversity, latency to key interconnection points (particularly Ashburn's Data Center Alley), and dark fiber availability. Sites more than 15–20 miles from core interconnection hubs face meaningful latency and fiber construction costs that affect project economics.
Zoning and Entitlements
Loudoun County has historically been data center-friendly, but community sentiment is shifting. Concerns about noise (from backup generators and cooling equipment), visual impact, water consumption, and the perception that data centers create few local jobs have led to more contentious entitlement processes.
Prince William County has emerged as an alternative jurisdiction with generally favorable zoning policies, though the same community dynamics are beginning to emerge there as well.
Due diligence must now include detailed assessment of the local political environment, pending comprehensive plan amendments, and community opposition patterns — factors that can add 6–12 months to entitlement timelines.
The Build Advantage
Northern Virginia's complexity makes it the ideal market for AI-native site selection. At Build, our agentic AI platform evaluates power infrastructure, fiber connectivity, land availability, zoning compatibility, and financial feasibility simultaneously across hundreds of parcels — producing institutional-quality site selection reports in days rather than months.
In a market where the best sites are identified and locked up within weeks, the ability to screen comprehensively and move decisively is the difference between securing a pipeline and watching from the sidelines.