Warrenton Group Data Center, Petersburg, Virginia

Warrenton Group, a Washington, D.C. apartment developer, has city approval for a six-building data center campus on 175 acres at 2233 Halifax Road in Petersburg, Virginia, the former CSX Collier Yard property that the city now owns. It is the one Petersburg data center project that council members said they knew about before July 2026, when a news report revealed three others.

City Council gave the project zoning approval in 2025, then early in 2026 amended it to add three parcels for more access and room for wetland mitigation. Warrenton is developing the campus through its TWG Data arm, with engineering by Timmons Group. The city's interim planning director, Jared Crews, said in July that Warrenton had not submitted a site plan since the enlargement was approved, and no megawatt figure, tenant or cost has been published.

Since 2024 Petersburg's zoning has allowed data centers by right on M-1 and M-2 industrial land, so three other projects won approval without public hearings or council votes: NuVu Real Estate's $1.1 billion, 300-megawatt campus at 2588 County Drive, Wagner Properties' three buildings at 1161 Wagner Road, and Menlo Digital's four-building campus at 2255 Jamestown Drive, whose site plan is under review.

Council members said they were blindsided. "It was in that article that I learned there are three (more) data center sites moving forward in Petersburg," Councilman Charlie Cuthbert said at a July 2026 meeting, holding up the story; the Warrenton project was the only one he knew of. "From the get-go, I have thought that no data center should be allowed without a special-use permit," Cuthbert said.

Councilmember Annette Smith-Lee said: "I didn't even know anything about it, and nobody came to us and presented anything to us about any data centers." Councilman Arnold Westbrook Jr., whose Ward 7 includes the Warrenton site, said he welcomes the interest: "I'm not pro-data centers; I'm not against data centers," he told council.

Warrenton's next step is a site plan, which city planning staff will review. Whether Petersburg goes back to requiring special-use permits for data centers, as Cuthbert wants, is up to City Council.