Listen to this articlePenzance, a real estate investment and development firm as well as a fund manager with headquarters in Washington, D.C., broke ground Friday, Nov. 21, in Chantilly on a new data center that has been fully leased by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
AWS, a subsidiary of Amazon that provides cloud computing platforms to clients including individuals, businesses and governments, will operate and staff the data center, according to a Nov. 21 Penzance announcement.
Bethesda-based Penney Design Group is the project’s architect, and Baltimore-based Whiting-Turner is the general contractor. North-Carolina-based Kimley-Horn is the civil engineer.
Located at 4151 Autopark Circle, the 45-megawatt facility is expected to be completed in the first half of 2027.
The data center will sit on 12 acres of a 79-acre site located adjacent to the Chantilly Auto Park, about 10 minutes from Dulles International Airport.
The facility will be 240,000 square feet and will offer rooftop HVAC units and acoustically enclosed generators to limit noise and vibration. The site will use minimal water and rely on outside air for cooling for 95% of the year, according to Josh Weissman, director of data center delivery for AWS.
“This is a high-impact, future-ready facility — and it‘s built for what comes next in AI, cloud, and edge computing,” John Kusturiss, a partner at Penzance, stated in a news release. “Chantilly offers unmatched connectivity, and this site is designed to deliver for today’s infrastructure needs while anticipating tomorrow’s technologies.”
Additionally, the project will feature EV charging stations, a bird-friendly building design and 67 acres of open green space with walking trails for public use. Diesel backup generators at the data center are designed to reduce particulate matter and noxious emissions by 90%.
Penzance expects the facility to earn a silver LEED certification for data centers.
“We’re continually innovating to ensure our data centers fit responsibly into the communities we call home,” Weissman stated in the news release.
Building the facility will create more than 1,000 construction jobs. Once operational, the data center is expected to sustain up to 50 operations jobs.
In October, Penzance announced it had secured $100 million in construction financing for the data center. An affiliate of Penzance acquired the land in 2022. Previously, it was rezoned for vehicles sales, according to the company.
The cost of building the data center has not been disclosed, a spokesperson for Penzance said Monday.
Founded in 1996, Penzance manages more than $1.1 billion in discretionary capital on behalf of institutional investors through its series of flagship funds.
