Because the property sits within the county's recently approved technology overlay district, any data center project on the site would be a by-right use and would not require going through the public hearing process. Google is currently performing due diligence on the property. If the company decides to proceed with the purchase, the next step would be to begin site engineering to develop a site plan for submission to the county. As of Wednesday, Google had submitted no plans, according to Goochland County Administrator Jeremy Raley.
The project site would bisect Route 288 north of Patterson Avenue and is owned by an entity tied to Pruitt Associates and Riverstone Group, which control the bulk of the land in West Creek. According to the July SCC filing, the customer for the 1,200-megawatt campus had executed four engineering letters of authorization for the project, placing it in a queue for Dominion Energy where it could sit for years before a feasibility study and construction letter of authorization are completed.
The county's release detailed a timeline of prior interactions with Google, starting with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership reaching out in early 2024 to arrange a meeting with a data center user. Goochland entered into a nondisclosure agreement with Google on January 10, 2024, and county staff met with Google officials on January 30 of that year to discuss potential locations. After that meeting, VEDP informed the county that Google was not interested and was not moving forward. However, after last November's adoption of the technology overlay district, Google reengaged with the county and began due diligence on the West Creek site. In an effort to provide transparency, the county requested to be released from the NDA, and on Tuesday both the county and Google agreed to the release, prompting Wednesday's announcement.
The potential Google site is east of the proposed Tuckahoe Tech Park, a 900-acre tract within the county's TOD West area where data centers require a conditional-use permit. That project, backed by Denver-based developer Tract, would need approvals through the public hearing process. The announcement of Google's interest comes shortly after a recent hearing in a lawsuit brought by four Goochland residents against the county, claiming 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, which is now under advisement by the judge.
Google's efforts in Goochland would add to its already sizable data center aspirations in the Richmond region. The company has begun construction on a data center campus on a 300-plus-acre site at 2700 Bermuda Hundred Road in eastern Chesterfield next to Meadowville Technology Park, and has several other data center facilities planned for the western end of Chesterfield County. The proposed 1,200-megawatt campus represents one of the largest single data center developments announced in the region and underscores the intensifying demand for computing infrastructure driven by artificial intelligence and cloud services.