The Nickel Report

Demand for data center capacity is rewriting the rules of site selection. With interconnection queues stretching for years, power has become the scarcest input, and properties once discounted because of known or suspected contamination can offer infrastructure support that greenfield sites often cannot. This includes large tracts of industrially zoned land that already have transmission, substations, water, and transportation access. Additionally, federal, state, and local funding and tax benefits may be available to encourage development of these brownfield sites. For many developers, the question is no longer whether to consider a brownfield, but how to do it without inheriting its problems.

Virginia remains at the center of the rapidly growing data center industry, with Northern Virginia representing the world’s largest data center market and significant growth occurring elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Against that backdrop, data center regulation was a hot topic during the 2026 Virginia General Assembly session. While the legislature imposed relatively few new requirements directly on data center developers or operators, several measures direct state agencies to study data center impacts or develop additional environmental requirements.