How did Chesterfield County land a $9B Google deal? The answer goes back 30 years.

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — Chesterfield County's $9 billion Google data center deal did not happen overnight. It is the product of three decades of zoning decisions, tax policy changes, and behind-the-scenes negotiations — some shielded by non-disclosure agreements — that quietly positioned the county as a major player in the data center industry.

The story begins in 1996, when Meadowville Technology Park was zoned as an industrial technology park. County leaders believed the site's robust water infrastructure made it a strong candidate for a microchip manufacturer. That zoning decision would prove to have far longer legs than anyone anticipated.

"What made for an attractive site for a chip manufacturer also makes an attractive site for data centers," Deputy County Administrator Jesse Smith said.

That decades-old zoning case entitled developers to build data centers on the property — a legal foundation that would not be fully realized for years.

The county's first data center came in 2006.

"We were certainly excited in 2006 when really the very first data center in Chesterfield County and one of the first in the Commonwealth was constructed at Meadowville Technology Park," Smith said. "It was called Commonwealth Enterprise Solutions. It housed the data centers for the Commonwealth of Virginia, relatively small facility."

Virginia then established a sales and use tax exemption for data center equipment in 2010, adding another layer of incentive for future investment.

In 2017, Chesterfield County competed with Henrico County for a Facebook data center worth $750 million. Chesterfield lost — but the defeat prompted a strategic reassessment.

"The Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors decided to lower the data center tax rate from $1.80 to 24 cents per 100, and that would allow us to better compete for data center opportunities," Deputy Director if Economic Development Matt McLaren said.

The 2019 rate cut was a calculated risk. At the time, the county had no existing revenue from that tax. Capital One, which developed its first building at Chirisa Technology Park in 2014, did not pay personal property tax under that structure. The state IT center at Meadowville had little equipment running.

In late 2019, Google — operating under the code name "Project Peanut" — took advantage of the new incentive, purchasing property at 2100 Bermuda Hundred Road. The site had been zoned in 1966 as heavy industrial with no restrictions, and county leaders said a data center was a far better outcome than what had previously been proposed for the land.

"The challenge with this property for years is that we had folks come in and want to develop things like a paper plant, metals manufacturing," Smith said. "It allowed a lot of noxious uses that, you know, really from a local government perspective, we did not want to see there. So, in terms of this getting conveyed to a data center, is actually a much better use with what it could have been."

Two additional data center projects soon followed — Project Loch and Project Skye. Project Loch, tied to a property at 750 Watkins Center Parkway, came with its own complications.

In 2022, FedEx was pursuing the site for a truck terminal. County leaders opposed the use.

"From a county perspective, that was not a palatable use for this part of the county," Smith said. "You know, it just wasn't something that we wanted to see. So the planning director at the time actually denied the site plan."

FedEx appealed the denial to the Board of Zoning Appeals, which sided with the company and supported the truck terminal. The county then filed suit in circuit court, placing the property in a holding pattern.

"When that happened, we met with the landowner and said, 'Look, we would like to work with you to find a use that is better than a truck terminal that will still allow you to sell your property,'" Smith said.

The result was a rezoning for a data center, approved in May 2025 following a community meeting in February 2025 and a public hearing in April 2025.

Google's Project Skye, at 4201 Moseley Road, followed a nearly identical timeline — with a community meeting in February 2025, a public hearing in April 2025, and a rezoning approval in May 2025. The county said most public hearing comments on Project Skye were in support, with the majority coming from electricians and other trades workers who cited construction job opportunities.

The three site approvals led Google to announce its Chesterfield investment in August 2025: a $9 billion commitment across 3 campuses and 9 buildings.

Watch: Google's $9 billion Virginia investment includes new Chesterfield data center

County leaders have since signaled they are not looking to add more data center projects.

"The board has come out and said we really aren't interested in seeing any more data center development," Smith said. "So, sort of what you see is what you get at this point."

The financial stakes of 30 years of decisions are significant. Google's data centers are projected to generate $300 million to $500 million in tax revenue each. A full buildout of all 3 campuses would shift the residential-to-commercial tax burden from a 79%-to-21% split to 76%-to-24%.

Deputy County Administrator Matt Harris said the decision to pursue data centers was a direct response to longstanding pressure to reduce the tax burden on residents.

"They've already taken steps to block any further development in this way. They came into it, they wanted to dabble into the data centers and they wanted to add that to the mix of — you know — our economic mix, and which quite frankly before data centers that was the loudest topic. We need to shift more to the commercial payer. This is in response to years of 'how can we take this off of the residential payer?' right? That's how we got here. That can't get lost," Harris said.

The Board of Supervisors deferred a vote consider an ordinance that could lower the car tax rate from $3.25 to $1.79 — nearly in half — funded by the revenue expected from the three approved Google data center campuses.

Watch: Chesterfield County halts new data centers and weighs cutting car tax rate nearly in half

Community meetings are expected in the coming weeks to hear from residents on what they would like the tax revenue to go to.

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