Sandy Farms Data Center, Severn, Maryland

The Sandy Farms data center at 7665 Sandy Farm Road in Severn, Maryland, is an operating hyperscale powered shell that Harrison Street began building in 2020 and sold to the private equity firm GI Partners in early 2026, with Oppidan developing an added shell on the campus. It sits in Anne Arundel County, about 3 miles from Fort Meade, on a site of nearly 50 acres. Harrison Street finished the shell, about the size of two football fields, two years after breaking ground, and a 2025 letter from the project's consultants, Kimley-Horn, told the county zoning office the center had been operating for more than a year and that an added shell was planned "as an extension to the existing building."

GI Partners bought Sandy Farms together with a powered shell in Laurel, Prince George's County, for a combined $221.9 million, with a $113 million acquisition loan from Capital One Bank, DCD reported on March 2, 2026, citing trade publications and county property records. Harrison Street said both campuses are fully leased to a hyperscale user, and GI Partners said they are leased to a single user, but neither named it. The Baltimore Banner reported that it is not clear who operates the Severn building, although a 2023 report said Amazon occupied a portion of it.

On Sept. 21, 2026 the Anne Arundel County Council voted unanimously to impose a 15-month moratorium on data centers, choosing it over council member Nathan Volke's original bill to write data centers out of the county zoning code entirely. The moratorium does not affect data centers already in development, and it will not stop existing centers from expanding their buildings or onto adjacent lots, so the Sandy Farms extension is not blocked by it. "Now that we know these things are causing problems everywhere they go, it's time to pump the brakes," Volke said before the vote. "What concerns me isn't only the data centers themselves, but everything that comes with them," Brenda Cintron of Hanover said in public comment. Advocates for Fort George G. Meade pushed back on an outright ban over concerns it would stifle defense contractors and the cybersecurity industry, and Microsoft's Kaitlin Monaghan said future phases of the company's Annapolis Junction campus could be stifled by a moratorium.

The new law sets up a work study group to look at data center practices elsewhere and recommend legislation to the county executive and council, and council member Julie Hummer said the moratorium would lift early if that report is finished before the 15 months are up. Anne Arundel joins Howard, Prince George's and Calvert counties with temporary bans, while Harford County has banned data centers outright.