According to DCD, Amazon Data Services just closed a massive $700 million deal for the Devlin Technology Park site in Prince William County, Virginia. The company bought the 270-acre property from Stanley Martin Homes in a transaction that finalized late last month. The land had been zoned for data center use back in November 2023 after significant local opposition and legal battles. This zoning allows for up to 3.5 million square feet of data center space and three electrical substations. At roughly $3.7 million per acre, Amazon paid well above market rates for data center-zoned land in Virginia. Stanley Martin had originally acquired the property for less than $60 million back in 2021, making this an extraordinary return on investment.
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<h2 id="virginia-data–center-gold-rush”>Virginia data center gold rush
Here’s the thing – this isn’t just another real estate purchase. At $3.7 million per acre, Amazon is paying what amounts to Manhattan-level prices for Virginia farmland. And they’re doing it because Northern Virginia has become the absolute epicenter of the global cloud computing industry. AWS basically launched its cloud business here back in 2006, and the region has been exploding ever since.
What’s really striking is the profit margin here. Stanley Martin turned a $60 million investment into $700 million in about four years. That’s the kind of return that makes venture capital look conservative. It shows just how desperate cloud providers are for properly zoned land with power access in this specific region.
Power and opposition
Now, this deal didn’t happen overnight. Stanley Martin started assembling this land back in 2021 and filed for data center rezoning in 2022. There was “much opposition from locals” according to the report, plus legal battles. But the county supervisors approved it anyway in November 2023.
That pattern is becoming familiar across Northern Virginia. Communities are increasingly pushing back against the massive power demands and visual impact of data centers, but the economic incentives are just too powerful for local governments to resist. Amazon needs this land to keep feeding the insatiable energy demands of its cloud empire.
Amazon’s Virginia empire
So why is Amazon willing to pay such premium prices? Because Northern Virginia is essentially the company’s cloud headquarters. They already operate more than 50 data centers across Loudoun, Fairfax, Prince William, and Fauquier counties. Greenpeace estimated they had 1.7GW of capacity back in 2019 – and that number has likely doubled since.
Basically, this region is the backbone of AWS, which generates the majority of Amazon’s profits. When your most profitable business depends on having enough server capacity, you don’t quibble over a few hundred million dollars for land. You just buy it.
What’s next
Looking at the bigger picture, this acquisition signals that Amazon’s cloud expansion is far from over. They’re actively developing new projects in at least eight additional Virginia counties according to previous reports. The demand for cloud computing just keeps growing, and Amazon needs the physical infrastructure to support it.
The real question is how much more land Amazon can acquire before hitting serious political or infrastructure limits. At some point, the power grid and local communities will push back harder. But for now? The data center gold rush in Virginia shows no signs of slowing down.
