Pittsylvania County Data Center, Chatham, Virginia

Balico LLC wanted to build a data center campus and a natural gas power plant on about 750 acres of farmland near the town of Chatham, in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Its first application, filed in October 2024, covered 2,200 acres, 84 data center buildings and a 3,500-megawatt gas plant. Backers called it the largest gas plant in Virginia. CEO Irfan Ali told DCD the plant would draw on the Mountain Valley Pipeline: “MVP will provide us with all the gas we need, and it’s right there on our site.”

Neighbors organized against it. Amanda Wydner, a cattle and livestock farmer who moved back to the county to raise her children there, and longtime resident Kathy Stump helped lead the opposition. Wydner said the fight drew together residents who were “Black and white, male and female, young and old,” united by fear the project would “irrevocably change the area.”

Balico offered nearby landowners $30,000 up front and $50,000 every six months while it studied the land, payments large enough to divide neighbors. Dave and Amy Davis turned down an increased offer, saying “there's nowhere else” they wanted to live. Mike Ferrette and Mary Knapp had moved to the county from Fairfax to get away from exactly this kind of development. “I feel like I brought this down here with me like gum on my shoe,” Ferrette said.

Balico withdrew that application in November 2024 and resubmitted a smaller version later that month: 12 data center buildings of 396,000 square feet each, with the same 3,500-megawatt plant. Ali said the first phase would be 300 megawatts. In January 2025 the county planning commission voted unanimously to recommend denial, saying not enough specifics had been provided. The board of supervisors then postponed its final vote twice, in February and March, at Balico's request.

On April 7, 2025 Balico asked to withdraw its application, announcing the request the day before the board's scheduled vote. The board refused, voting 5-2 to deny the withdrawal request, then voted 6-1 on April 15, 2025 to deny the rezoning itself. Supervisor Tim Dudley, who represents the Hurt district, where the town of Hurt had agreed to supply the campus with water, cast the only vote for the project; Chairman Robert Tucker said he was not opposed to data centers but voted no because “we don't have community buy-in.”

Supervisor Kenneth Bowman said the fight had divided the county: “It's going to take a long time to heal that pain. It may take a generation.” Resident Amy Davis told the board Balico would “threaten our communities in a negative way, impacting the region's air, water, noise, light quality.”

Katie Whitehead, of the local opposition group, said the vote “shows respect for our comprehensive plan and concern for the many people whose health would be harmed by gas-fired power generation.” Morgan Butler, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which had pressed concerns about the project, said residents had made clear that “Balico's gas plant and data center campus would upend the County's vision for this area.”

The denial barred Balico from filing a substantially similar plan on the site for a year, a period that ended in April 2026. Company attorney Steven Gould said Balico would explore other uses for the land, including housing, and the company later called a residential subdivision on the 750 acres “a viable alternative,” though “not the ideal use we had envisioned.” No new application has been made public; any new plan would go back to the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors.