Google is weighing the purchase of a roughly 1,000-acre site in West Creek Business Park in Goochland County, Virginia, where it would build a 1,200-megawatt data center campus.

The company confirmed the plan after a news release from the county, marking the first time Google has been publicly tied to the proposal. The project would add to the company's existing data center ambitions in the Richmond region.

Early Stage: Due Diligence, No Plans Filed

Google is currently performing due diligence on the property. If it decides to proceed and buy the land, the next step would be site engineering to develop a site plan to submit to the county.

As of now, Google has submitted no plans, Goochland County Administrator Jeremy Raley said in an email Wednesday.

By-Right Status Under the Technology Overlay District

The site lies within the county's recently approved technology overlay district, known as the TOD, which means any data center project there would be a by-right use.

As a result, it would not need to go through the public hearing process.

The project site would bisect Route 288 north of Patterson Avenue. It is owned by an entity tied to Pruitt Associates and Riverstone Group, which control the bulk of the land in West Creek.

From Unnamed Filing to Named User

Wednesday's county release was the first time Google was associated with the proposal.

The project was first mentioned, without naming Google, in a State Corporation Commission regulatory filing dated July 14. That filing listed several potential data center campuses proposed by unnamed applicants for the eastern portion of Goochland.

Besides the 1,200-megawatt project now linked to Google, it included a 600-megawatt project that would rise on roughly 150 acres off Ashland Road and a 200-megawatt project east of Route 288 and north of Patterson Avenue.

All three developments are located in the TOD and an accompanying technology zone, which together span about 5 miles along Route 288, from Interstate 64 south to Patterson Avenue.

The TOD area is bordered to the west by Hockett Road and covers roughly 4,400 acres, about 3,500 of which are within West Creek and controlled by Pruitt Associates.

According to the July filing, the customer for the 1,200-megawatt campus had executed four ELOAs, or engineering letters of authorization, for the project.

Once an ELOA is issued, projects are placed in a project queue for Dominion Energy, where they can sit for years before a feasibility study is conducted on a site and a construction letter of authorization, or CLOA, is executed.

The filing did not identify the customer, but Google officials confirmed on Wednesday that the company was interested in that specific site.

County's Account of Its Contact With Google

The county's release laid out a timeline of its dealings with Google.

It begins with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership reaching out to the county in early 2024 to meet with a data center user and show them potential sites in Goochland County.

The county entered into a nondisclosure agreement with Google on Jan. 10, 2024, and county staff held one meeting with Google officials to discuss potential locations for a data center development on Jan. 30 of that year.

According to the release, after the meeting the VEDP told the county that Google was not interested and was not moving forward, and there was no further communication with Google at that time.

After last November's adoption of the TOD, however, Google re-engaged with the county and began due diligence on the West Creek site.

Because the county was already under the NDA from the earlier discussions, it did not enter into a new one, the release says.

In what the county described as an effort to provide transparency, it requested to be released from the NDA.

Both the county and Google agreed to the release on Tuesday, which prompted Wednesday's announcement of Google's involvement.

Neighboring Tuckahoe Tech Park Faces a Different Process

The potential Google site lies east of the proposed Tuckahoe Tech Park, which would rise within the county's TOD West area, a 900-acre tract where data centers require a conditional-use permit.

Denver, Colorado-based data center developer Tract is behind that project, which would need approvals through the public hearing process before it could move forward.

Lawsuit Over the TOD Awaits a Ruling

The announcement comes shortly after a recent hearing in a lawsuit that four Goochland residents have brought against the county.

The residents claim that supervisors and planning commissioners failed to clearly and lawfully explain their adoption of the TOD.

A hearing last Tuesday addressed the county's motion to dismiss the lawsuit, and that motion is under advisement by the judge in the case.

Building on Google's Chesterfield Presence

Google's efforts in Goochland would build on its existing data center plans in the Richmond region.

The company has begun construction on a data center campus on a site of more than 300 acres at 2700 Bermuda Hundred Road in eastern Chesterfield County, next to Meadowville Technology Park.

It also has several other data center facilities planned for the western end of Chesterfield County.