Blackstone isn’t giving up on one of the world’s largest data center projects without a fight.
Courtesy of QTS
A rendering of one of the planned QTS data centers in Prince William County
The investment giant’s data center arm, QTS, filed a last-minute notice of appeal to challenge a Virginia court decision that blocked the 2,100-acre PW Digital Gateway rezoning effort in Prince William County, Virginia.
The company had until 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday to appeal the Virginia Court of Appeals’ March 31 ruling that scrapped the county’s rezoning of the site.
It filed a notice of appeal less than three hours before that deadline, the Prince William Times first reported. A QTS spokesperson confirmed the appeal filing to Bisnow.
“The Prince William Board of County Supervisors previously approved this project, which would bring critical infrastructure and tens of billions of dollars in investment to the county, including millions of dollars in local annual tax revenue and thousands of high-paying permanent job opportunities,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We remain committed to the project and being a responsible partner to the Prince William County community.”
QTS is hoping to build 7.9M SF of data centers on an 812-acre portion of that site. The other developer that had been planning to build at PW Digital Gateway, Compass Datacenters, said earlier this week it doesn’t plan to move forward with an appeal.
The county’s Board of Supervisors — which had approved the rezoning in 2023 before being shaken up with new anti-data center lawmakers — said April 15 it would drop its own legal defense of PW Digital Gateway.
The rezoning was initially blocked by a circuit court judge in August, and then the appeals court affirmed its decision in March. The final avenue of appeal is with the Virginia Supreme Court.
The legal challenge to the rezoning came from groups seeking to prevent the construction of data centers and preserve the land around the historic Manassas National Battlefield Park. The groups sued the county, arguing that it didn’t provide the required public notices for a December 2023 public hearing at which more than 400 people testified.
QTS has argued that plaintiffs were “fully aware” of the proposed rezoning and that the appeals court mistakenly found violations to “highly technical notice provisions that harmed no one,” the Prince William Times reported.
One of the opposition groups, the American Battlefield Trust, had said in a statement last month it was prepared for the developers to appeal the ruling.
“Should the developers choose to continue this fight without the county’s support, they will be met with the grit and determination we and our partners have shown throughout this years-long legal battle,” American Battlefield Trust President David Duncan said in a statement.
