Diode Ventures pulled out of a proposed data center campus at Charles City County’s Roxbury Technology Park.

The company’s plan for the crook-shaped assemblage of land included around six buildable areas for data centers and a 100-acre conservation area, across the entire 515-acre area.

The plots nestled between Charles City Road, Roxbury Road and Old Union Road are an attractive spot for this type of project given that an electrical transmission line already dissects the center of the site, and the county is close to worldwide fiber networks.

Kansas City-based Diode said it notified the Board of Supervisors on Aug. 18 that it was withdrawing its applications for the project.

“Despite the County Planning Commission’s support of the project earlier this year, we made the decision to shift our focus elsewhere based on the results of conversations with our local collaborators and analysis of the site’s availability to be shovel-ready with power and municipal support,” the company said in a statement.

Attempts to reach Diode and Charles City County officials for comment weren’t answered Friday afternoon.

“Diode Ventures has spent the better part of two years working in Charles City County to analyze the Roxbury Technology Park site for a potential data center development and adjusting our application based on community feedback. During that time, we also identified ways the community would benefit — such as improved local infrastructure, significant new tax revenue streams and job training initiatives.”

The proposal stirred strong opposition in a county where residents’ complaints about officials’ backing of the project and about financial mismanagement have erupted at several recent meetings of the Board of Supervisors.

The county itself stood to gain significant tax revenues from the proposal. Diode told the Charles City County that the campus could bring in as much as $258 million over 20 years, citing figures from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. Meanwhile, the county expected to bring in $7.7 million in real estate taxes from its current residents and businesses.

Charles City has also been borrowing money to pay its bills every year. Last year it took out a $5 million, 10-month loan because it didn’t have the cash to cover expenses. Charles City proposed borrowing more cash to cover the interest.

Scores of residents said that the Board should instead focus on fixing current problems, rather than the Diode project.

The residents raised other financial concerns — a rent-free lease to a Baltimore developer who now owes back taxes, $2.4 million in spending to renovate the half-vacant “Market 5” retail facility and a $422,000 severance payment to a county administrator who resigned because of illness, among others.

Opponents also said the data center project was too close to a neighborhood of around 200 homes, that local roads wouldn’t be able to handle construction traffic of around 5,000 trips per day and worried about the impact on wildlife and streams.

“This isn’t smart planning,” Pat Davis, who lives near the site, said in June. “It also sets a dangerous precedent: that any outside company can come in, throw money around and reshape our future without our consent.

Charles City County resident Pat Davis said in June she was concerned that tax revenue from a data center could override residents’ concerns.

“Our board needs to stand up for the residents in the county instead of selling them out.”

Some Charles City residents also said there were too many unanswered questions about the data center campus, such as who would run it.

The site was expected to run 24 hours a day, but plans provided no detail about how many buildings it would have, the size of the expected investment or projected electricity use.

Diode was also asking to get approval for a centralized wastewater facility, which it said would stimulate more industrial development in the area.

“Moving forward, Diode is committed to seeking opportunities to align future projects and their associated substantial financial and infrastructure benefits with the needs and values of the communities where we operate,” Diode said in the statement.

Its full jobs estimate was around 800-1,200 construction jobs and 50 to 100 full time jobs at data centers in fields like engineering, maintenance and security.

Diode is currently developing data center campuses in the Kansas City suburbs and near Boise, Idaho.

https://www.pilotonline.com/2025/08/25/developer-backs-out-charles-city-data-center/