More than 70% of the world’s internet traffic passes through the data centers located in eastern Loudoun County with such a high concentration residing in the city of Ashburn, that the area is referred to as Data Center Alley. As a result, land here is scarce and can command prices in excess of $2 million per acre.
In early 2016, Compass determined Ashburn’s escalating land costs would precipitate a migration towards the north and west. In response, we purchased farmland in the town of Leesburg, where the cost of land was extremely low. At the time, this area hadn’t been zoned for data centers. However, within two years after we acquired our 100 Acre, 75-megawatt campus, the top 3 hyper scalers began developing their own campuses within the same area.
In addition, power in Leesburg is delivered by the Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative, a separate provider than Ashburn’s, and more importantly, the high-voltage lines serving the site are different than those supporting Data Center Alley. The separation of providers in high voltage lines immunizes our customers from both power outages in Ashburn and legislatively prescribed rate increases.
Compass. We build for what’s next.
