By The Woodbridge Gazette Staff • July 6, 2026

Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

The Prince William Digital Gateway — once billed as the largest data center development in the world, and one that would have placed up to 37 data center buildings at the edge of Manassas National Battlefield Park — is dead.

Rural Gainesville residents who have fought the project since it was first approved in December 2023 learned Thursday afternoon that data center developer QTS had withdrawn its appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court. That appeal was the project's last remaining path forward, and its withdrawal ends the legal fight for good.

QTS filed the withdrawal on July 2, saying in a written filing that the decision came "after careful consideration" and that the company would move toward what it called a responsible, orderly wind-down of project activity.

A project years in the making — and years in the fighting

The Digital Gateway would have spanned roughly 1,760 acres along Pageland Lane in rural Gainesville, running from the northwest edge of the battlefield park to Sudley Road. The scale was enormous: up to 37 data center buildings, about 14 on-site electrical substations, and enough projected power draw — up to 9 gigawatts — to serve more than 2 million homes.

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors voted to approve the rezonings underpinning the project in December 2023 despite significant community pushback. The vote was immediately challenged in court by nearby residents, the Oak Valley Homeowners Association, and the American Battlefield Trust, who argued the county's rezoning process was rushed and legally flawed.

They were right, according to the courts. A circuit court agreed, and on March 31 of this year, the Virginia Court of Appeals unanimously upheld that ruling, voiding the rezonings. Two weeks later, on April 14, the Board of County Supervisors voted unanimously to drop its own defense of the project — after spending nearly $2 million in taxpayer-funded legal costs. Compass, the second data center company tied to the project, also declined to appeal further. That left QTS as the lone company still fighting, until this week.

"We will sleep better tonight"

For the residents who organized against the project from the earliest weeks after its approval, the news landed as long-awaited relief.

"Even though there will be a Fourth of July and 250th, this will be an even bigger celebration," said Liam Burke, one of the plaintiffs in the case. "We will sleep better tonight."

Chap Petersen, a former Virginia state senator who represents the American Battlefield Trust and area residents in the litigation, called the outcome close to unprecedented.

"We stood up to some of the largest companies in the world, and we were able to pull off essentially a miracle," Petersen said.

Craig Blakely, the attorney representing Oak Valley and nearby homeowners, said his clients had no advance warning QTS planned to drop its appeal, but that the legal footing had been strong from the start.

"We think it's the right answer because both the circuit court and the court of appeals analyzed this from the standpoint of the facts and the law. They analyzed it correctly," Blakely said. "We think that it would've been very difficult for QTS to overcome that at the Supreme Court."

American Battlefield Trust President David Duncan framed the outcome as a milestone for historic preservation nationally, not just locally, pointing to the significance of the ground at stake near First and Second Manassas — battles that together produced nearly 27,000 casualties, some of whom remain in unmarked graves near the proposed site.

Part of a broader shift on data centers

The Digital Gateway's collapse arrives amid a broader change in how Virginia communities view large-scale data center development. A recent Washington Post/George Mason University poll found that only about a third of Virginians now say they'd support a data center being built in their community — down sharply from roughly seven in ten as recently as 2023.

That shift has been visible locally too, as Prince William County continues to weigh a wave of data center proposals pushing east toward Woodbridge, Occoquan, and other established neighborhoods — a trend this paper has covered extensively in recent months.

What comes next

A new rezoning application for the Pageland Lane corridor remains theoretically possible, though nothing has been proposed. In the meantime, the American Battlefield Trust says it wants to work with the county, area landowners, and the broader preservation community on a conservation-friendly path forward for the land bordering the battlefield.

For now, area residents are marking a rare and hard-won local victory — one that arrives just two days ahead of the nation's 250th birthday.

Sourcing: This report draws on statements and case background from the American Battlefield Trust and court filings in the Virginia Supreme Court appeal.

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This story may be updated as QTS proceeds with winding down project activity and as next steps for the Pageland Lane land become clearer.

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