As questions swirl about a data center development at the Berry Hill megasite in Pittsylvania County, local officials say that the project would be an AI data center campus with over 2,000 permanent jobs.
At a Monday community meeting, local officials addressed concerns about how many jobs will actually be created, its inpact on electric rates, just how much water would be used and monetary incentives.
They also discussed the promises laid out in a draft performance agreement: $73 billion in investment and 2,050 jobs with salaries of $85,000 over a 30-year period.
If the expectations in the draft agreement are met, the project would be the largest in Southside history in terms of investment, job creation and salary. It would encompass nearly 3,000 acres of the 3,528-acre industrial site, which is less than 10 miles west of the Danville city limit.
The Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facilities Authority approved a land sale to a Stack Infrastructure affiliate in March, though the draft performance agreement has yet to be signed.
Stack Infrastructure is a Colorado-based data center developer.
There’s been a lot of chatter, especially online, about the project, said Matt Rowe, economic development director for Pittsylvania County.
Rowe presented information about the megasite and the Stack project at the meeting. A panel including Pittsylvania County officials, Danville City Council members and state delegates also spoke about the project.
Permanent jobs at an AI data center campus
The project would be an AI data center campus, which means that the 2,050 jobs would be permanent positions, not construction jobs, he said.
“I actually did a presentation in 2024 where I went on record and said that data centers don’t produce a lot of jobs, that they typically have 30 to 50 folks,” Rowe said. “That’s correct when it comes to cloud facilities.”
Cloud facilities, or traditional data centers, usually contain CPUs, or computer processing units, that support general computing needs, according to IBM.
AI data centers contain GPUs, or graphics processing units, which support machine learning and require much more processing power.
“In contrast to AI data centers, typical data centers contain infrastructure that would quickly be overwhelmed by AI workloads,” according to the IBM article. “Often, the sheer number of GPUs necessary for AI use cases also requires far more square footage.”
That means they need more permanent employees, Rowe said. AI data centers typically employ about 150 full-time positions per building.
“Because the computers are computing at a harder rate, they’re having to swap out servers more, they’re having to do more testing and HVAC work,” he said.
The anticipated facility at the megasite will “have well over 4 million square feet,” Rowe said. “So, the numbers are going to add up pretty quickly.”
The 2,050 jobs mentioned in the performance agreement is the minimum amount, he said. These positions include direct employees of the developer, Stack Infrastructure, and of the end-user, which would be a company like Microsoft or Amazon, as well as full-time security and non-construction contractors that report to the site daily, Rowe said.
Residents have been more vocally opposed to a data center development than to projects that the megasite has been considered for in the past, like a car manufacturer, he said.
“But when you look at the numbers and who’s actually going to the site, the payroll in the community is the same as if they were all just Toyota employees,” Rowe said. “The only difference is they’re getting paid a lot more.”
Electric rates and water usage
One misconception about the project is that it will raise electric bills for ratepayers, since data centers require massive amounts of energy, Rowe said.
In reality, the megasite has been a part of the Appalachian Power service territory since the mid-2010s, whereas the property around it is served by Danville Utilities, he said.
“That comment about it impacting the rates of surrounding ratepayers, it can’t,” Rowe said. “It’s not part of the Danville Utilities system. All the neighbors are on Danville Utilities and the megasite is on Appalachian Power. … It cannot have any impact on Danville Utilities services rates, positive or negative.”
Stack Infrastructure is planning to enter a service agreement with Appalachian Power, he said. Stack will pay for “any and all costs associated with providing power to the campus,” so there will be “no impact on AEP customers” either.
There have also been concerns about water usage, since data centers use large quantities of water for cooling.
This is another difference between traditional data centers and AI data centers, Rowe said. Newer data centers, like AI facilities, often use less water because of innovations in technology like closed-loop systems, which recirculate water and eliminate evaporation.
“The majority of facilities that are being implemented today are using closed-loop systems,” he said. “They’re typically being filled with about 10,000 gallons per building. So it’s a one-time fill, and you typically don’t recharge it until about eight to 10 years later.”
Even so, the megasite has the water infrastructure to support a tenant with large water needs, Rowe said.
All water at the megasite has to be municipally sourced, and the pipeline to the site is served with water coming from Eden, North Carolina, with Danville Utilities as the distributor. The pipeline can provide 7 million gallons of water per day, he said.
“There is no impact to groundwater or neighboring wells,” Rowe said. “It’s coming from surface water. It’s the Dan River from the city of Eden.”
The Dan River has 455 million gallons of water per day passing by the site, Rowe said. This is about 35% of usual due to an ongoing drought, and in normal circumstances, that number would be 1.3 billion gallons, he added.
“There’s plenty of water going down the Dan River for these types of uses, and that’s evident because we used to have Dan River Mills yanking out 15 million to 17 million gallons of water a day,” Rowe said. “We had MillerCoors yanking out 10 million gallons of water a day. So no amount of water coming to the megasite will ever equal what was previously being taken out.”
Monetary incentives
It’s typical for economic development deals to involve monetary incentives, like tax rebates for developers.
This project, on the other hand, involves no discretionary monetary incentives, Rowe said.
“I’ve heard that over and over again, ‘Let me see the incentives,’” he said. “There is no incentive package.”
The region does have to provide Stack Infrastructure with $1,000 per job created, because the megasite is designated as an enterprise zone, which is a state program to encourage business development in Virginia.
The program requires a job creation grant, but that is the only incentive that Stack will receive, Rowe said.
“We’re having conversations with [Stack] about a community benefits plan, and even though we’re paying them that, perhaps they can decide that they want to donate that to a charity of their choice in our region,” he said.
Pittsylvania is also working to establish a separate tax on data center equipment, which would also generate revenue for the county, he said.
The revenue from this project can “hopefully be reinvested back into the community for the schools and services that folks enjoy and depend on,” Rowe said.
Looking forward and looking back
The draft performance agreement is expected to be finalized in the next two weeks, Rowe said.
The region is also working on addressing other concerns, he said, like making sure local fire and emergency management services can handle the increase in development and creating housing to accommodate thousands of additional workers in the area.
“Our goal with this performance agreement is for it to be the strongest, most lucrative, most community beneficial local performance agreement that has ever been done for an economic development project in the country,” Rowe said.
He shared information about previous projects that the megasite was a finalist for.
That includes a Toyota-Mazda facility in 2017, a Hyundai electric vehicle facility in 2022, a Ford battery plant in 2022, and a chemical manufacturer in 2023, among others.
Rowe said he feels that the Stack Infrastructure project will be just as beneficial to the community, if not more, than the previous projects.
“Sometimes you can win by losing,” he said.
