Developer moving forward with data center project after buying Azalea Flea Market site for $8M

A rendering of the single-story data center that DC Blox plans to build at the site. (County documents)

Despite opposition from neighboring residents – and from the Henrico Planning Commission – developer DC Blox is moving forward with the data center it’s been planning on part of the property that until recently housed the long-running Azalea Flea Market.

The Atlanta-based firm has filed development plans for a 65,000-square-foot data center that would rise on a roughly 5-acre site behind the CubeSmart self-storage facility on Richmond Henrico Turnpike.

The filing was made three weeks after DC Blox closed on the 30-acre property that includes the data center site and the grounds of the now-former Azalea Flea Market, which ended earlier this month after a four-decade run.

Property records show DC Blox paid $8 million for the property, which transferred Jan. 16. The property is assessed by the county at about $980,000.

A site plan shows the data center’s new location behind the CubeSmart self-storage facility on Richmond Henrico Turnpike.

While DC Blox was unsuccessful in its request last year to rezone the property, which is zoned B-3 Business District, B-3 allows data centers as a permitted use. The requested change to industrial zoning had been sought for the data center site because the company considered B-3 to have more development restrictions that would increase the cost of the project.

Opposition from neighbors prompted DC Blox to scale back its request to just the 5 acres for the data center, which at that time was planned to be beside the CubeSmart, opposite a residential property and closer to the turnpike.

When the request went to the Planning Commission in October, however, commissioners voted unanimously to recommend denial, citing the citizen opposition to expanding industrial zoning “when adequate zoning for the proposed use exists in the area,” according to meeting minutes.

Earlier in the meeting, DC Blox had noted that the site is adjacent to hundreds of acres of industrial-zoned property – including the massive Amazon distribution center across the turnpike – as an argument for allowing the rezoning. Local attorney Andy Condlin with Roth Jackson Gibbons Condlin represented DC Blox in the request, which was later withdrawn.

Chris Gatch, executive vice president and chief revenue officer for DC Blox, said the feedback received from area residents and the county resulted in it moving the data center to behind the self-storage facility.

Chris Gatch

“We went through several iterations with the county based on community feedback on how we would site the data center on the property,” Gatch said. “We were excited to reach a location with the county that was suitable for the build, and we’re moving forward with our original plan, basically, to build a network communication node for a large hyperscaler.”

A hyperscaler is a large cloud service provider that provides computing and storage services at an enterprise scale. Gatch would not disclose the user for the data center but said it is a public company at the higher end of the Fortune 500.

Gatch said the 10-megawatt center will be “telecommunications-centric” and therefore smaller than most others that have been built in the region. The project is the first in Virginia for DC Blox, which Gatch said has built similar facilities in Atlanta, Alabama and South Carolina. About 25 workers are expected to staff the center.

Gatch had said the company liked the Azalea site for its connectivity to Dominion Energy’s power grid and its separation from other parts of the county where data center development has been more prevalent.

The company had said a second, 40-megawatt data center could also be built on the property, but Gatch said it’s not planning a second building at this time.

“We’re going to put $60 million into this facility out of the gate, on a piece of property behind that storage facility that would have otherwise never carried that much tax base,” he said. “If this facility reaches its full expansion potential (for) this single-tenant customer that is occupying it, it’ll be almost a $100 million investment.

“We hope that’s just a start for us in Richmond. We’re looking at other locations as well.”

The 10,000-megawatt facility will total 65,000 square feet.

As for the rest of the property that was planned for commercial development, Gatch said it’s reconsidering potential uses for that area. The property is north of Richmond Raceway and across from a shopping center and other commercial development.

“Obviously that’s a very developable site. Right now, we don’t have long-term plans to build an additional data center on the site. That could change. We’re going to reevaluate what is the best use for the remainder of that site,” he said.

“We did talk about potentially divesting part of that. At this point we haven’t made any long-term decisions, and we’re not currently making any plans to personally develop those other portions of the property.”

DC Blox purchased the property from Richmond-based BWS Enterprises, an entity led by the Sawyer family that once owned what was then called Richmond International Raceway before selling it in 1999. BWS had applied for the rezoning on behalf of DC Blox.

Pending plan approvals from Henrico, Gatch said the company is aiming to have the data center up and running by mid-2026. DC Blox is building the facility, which is designed by architecture firm HKS. Engineering firms on the project are BCEI (MEP), IMEG (civil) and CJG Engineers (structural).

Gatch said DC Blox is looking to be a good neighbor while also looking for more opportunities in the Richmond market.

“We’re looking forward to being a part of the community. Everywhere we operate, we’ve got great relationships with our community partners, and we’re looking forward to doing the same thing in that area,” he said.

“We want to keep investing in Richmond. We love that market. We think it’s a great technology market, so our plan is to not stop here.”

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