Diode Ventures Data Center, Charles City, Virginia

Diode Ventures, a subsidiary of Black & Veatch, withdrew its plan for a data center campus on about 515 acres in Charles City County, Virginia, after months of local opposition. The company told the county Board of Supervisors on August 18, 2025 that it was pulling its rezoning request and special use permits for the Roxbury Technology Park, and said it had no plans to refile there or anywhere else in the county.

The 515-acre site, about 20 miles east of Richmond, sits on five parcels Diode wanted rezoned to Light Industrial; the campus's total power was never disclosed. Diode said it would not use groundwater for cooling and estimated 800 to 1,200 construction jobs and 50 to 100 permanent jobs. The planning commission recommended the project in May 2025, but the Board of Supervisors delayed its vote in June after residents raised noise, light pollution and a lack of transparency from the developer.

Days before withdrawing, Diode filed revised plans turning about 100 acres of the site into a conservation buffer. The company said it was choosing "to shift our focus elsewhere based on the results of conversations with our local collaborators and analysis of the site's availability to be shovel-ready with power and municipal support."

Any new plan for the Roxbury site would need a fresh rezoning request, a planning commission recommendation and a final vote by the Board of Supervisors. Charles City County adopted data center performance standards in 2024 that Diode had asked to modify for this project.