(Chatham) — Pittsylvania County has taken the first step toward welcoming the biggest economic development project in its history.
The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a rezoning to help create the 58 East Data Campus. Developer Tom Gallagher with Anchorstone, LLC says this would be a first for the county. “Data centers are digital libraries. They’re the backbone of everything we do,” Gallagher told the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors Tuesday. “From agriculture to national security to military to AI, the demand for them (data centers) continues to increase.”
Gallagher says data centers are attractive for counties because they generate a lot of tax without requiring lots of resources for maintenance. “This is a high-yield, low-impact revenue source.”
The data center will be built on over 900 acres on the south side of Route 58, just east of the Danville city limits. “The site makes a lot of sense. You’ve got the landfill, other industrial parks on both the south side and north side of 58,” Gallagher said. “From the standpoint of the county’s Comprehensive Plan, we think this data center makes perfect sense.”
The 58 East Data Campus is a $4-to-5 billion investment and will create up to 500 permanent high-wage jobs.
John Daniel, Vice-Chair of the Pittsylvania County Industrial Development Authority, says once fully built out the data center will generate between 120-and-200 million dollars a year in direct tax revenue for Pittsylvania County. That adds up to nearly $1.8 billion dollars for the life of the project. “This data center has the potential to create a tremendous benefit to Pittsylvania County because of the substantial economic impact it brings and significant enhancements to the county’s overall tax base,” said Daniel.
A handful of people in the nearby Mountain Hill community opposed the data center. Anne Smith says the location is NOT ideal. “There are too many questions pertaining to this company,” Smith told Supervisors. “Please think about how you would feel seeing these bright lights at night and hearing this noise, and dealing with the increased traffic this will produce.”
Dan River District Supervisor Eddie Hite says he understands the neighbors’ concerns, but the plusses outweigh the minuses. “I don’t want to be a Supervisor in ten or fifteen years and have people say ‘well you had a chance to do something for the entire county to help with our tax base, and you refused to’. I’m not going to be on that side,” said Hite.
Developers will still need a Special Use Permit from the Board of Zoning Appeals before construction can begin. They hope to have that secured before the end of October.