County Seat, #10 — the second data center?

The camel’s nose and other sad metaphors

Where there’s smoke, a fire usually emerges. At this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting, the board went into executive session to discuss project Titan, and to talk about acquisitions/disposition of real estate in East Wytheville/Fort Chiswell districts. This was on the agenda, and there were reasons to be suspicious.

After an hour of me doomscrolling in the lobby all by myself during that closed session, the board emerged, and took no action. Everyone went home. I scratched my head. I felt like I was leaving the funeral home down the street. No one was smiling.

Yesterday, a source unaffiliated with the county called to say that there were not one, but two new Big Datty data centers to be announced. Two names, two locations, two large–one very large–tracts of land, and outside of the county-owned Progress Park. Which might go towards explaining why the BoS took no action on project Titan on Tuesday, if the suspicions are right. I remember another friend telling me months ago that you can tell data centers are unpopular because elected officials do not want to stand up and be part of the announcement.

Today, in the early morning hours of not sleeping, I searched the county Clerk’s office of recent real estate transactions under the two names given to me, and confirmed one: on March 16, the Rogg Partnership entered into a Memorandum of Contract to sell 500 acres of land to Ardent Acquisitions, a Georgia LLC. Rogg’s land is known to many as the former Chitwood property at Grahams Forge, with the stately mansion on the south side of I-81. Some might remember that the son of the principals in this partnership was the town, and then county, engineer many years ago.

To mix more metaphors into this doomscrolling, once the camel nudges its nose under the tent, Katy bar the door. Rogg’s deal had been under negotiation since May, 2025. Solis Arx signed papers with the County in June, but nothing was disclosed until December. The County is begrudgingly moving forward with zoning consideration, with the first informational meeting set for Monday, March 30 at Fort Chiswell High School.

The draft zoning ordinance–DRAFT–would allow data centers to be built ‘By Right’ in Industrial and Commercial districts. This would mean, no public hearing, you’re welcome to build the damn thing. Many of us reading the DRAFT ordinance and reviewing the DRAFT map (wytheco.org) have questions and suggestions–one being to only allow data centers via a ‘Special Use’ permit only in Industrial districts–and not at all in Commercial. That would at least require a local public hearing–something we do not have the ‘privilege’ of now without zoning– before a developer could proceed with the myriad other state environmental permits. Another suggestion would be to create a second Industrial district for ‘private land,’ as there is a distinction between the county-owned Progress Park Industrial permitted uses, and those outside the park. But we’re getting into the weeds here.

As DRAFTed, the county map shows the Rogg property as Agricultural, which is what it is today. Last time i noticed, it was being farmed. Data centers would not be allowed in Agricultural districts. But we don’t have a zoning ordinance, and Rogg signed their contract a week and a half ago. So this transaction is announced before the zoning discussion goes very far.

There is no direct line between Ardent of Georgia being a data center developer, yet. And no purchase price was given in the recorded contract. Searching the world wide web and digging into existing data centers (oh, the irony) does reveal a company named Ardent Data Centers, based in Reston, which is involved with a data center near Pittsburgh. Whether they are connected is unknown, and might be coincidental.

We also do not have assurance that the County will do more than this first informational meeting on zoning. Is the BoS throwing in the towel already, now that the camel is under the tent and the horse is out of the barn?

Show up on Monday and express your opinion on the best, and last, remaining tool to prevent unwanted development, be it solar farms or a data centers. Our rural character will rapidly evaporate, if this next, and other data centers are the welcoming image as you enter Wythe on I-81. We’ll become the Ashburn, (of Loudoun County) in the blink of any eye without any controls on developers doing what they want here.

And brace yourselves for the pending next big enchilada, on the much larger tract of land. Thousands of acres for $120 million; room for data and solar panels galore! Remember, Solis Arx is to be built on 99 acres, and will provide the County with $10–15 million annually in lieu of taxes.

These data centers on private land will pay large amount of local machine and tools taxes, but they are exempted under existing state sales tax — which is why the General Assembly adjourned last week without adopting a state budget. The fight over whether new data centers should pay sales tax will be resolved, in theory, by mid-April. The state has given data centers something like $1.6 billion in sales tax relief as a means to induce more to come here. That feels, in hindsight, to have been a foolish endeavor.

There’s no stopping damn hungry camels and horses. We’ll be the worse off–water, electricity. It’s a shame.