Amazon has scrapped plans for four data centers on a 122-acre former George Washington University campus in Loudoun County, Virginia, after local opposition.
The company will instead turn most of the site into mixed-use and residential development. It will donate 25 acres to the county for a community arts center and a recreational facility, and put $5 million into the county's housing fund. Amazon first submitted its proposal in July. In September, county board chair Phyllis J. Randall met with the company and put it to them that another use for the land might serve everyone better.
Amazon did not concede the legal point. Josh Weissman, the vice president in charge of its data center development, said the company sees the property's development potential differently than the county does. It chose a shared plan, he said, over "costly litigation." That reads as a company that thought it could have built, and decided a fight was not worth the delay.
The location is what gives this weight. Loudoun is nicknamed "Data Center Alley" because it holds the largest concentration of data centers on the planet. Residents there have complained about noise and the power these buildings draw, and the county's stance on new construction has shifted as a result. If a developer as large as Amazon retreats from one site in that county, other developers will notice.
Still, this is one site, and nothing in the deal suggests the county is closing the door on data centers elsewhere. The package also resembles what Donald Trump called for days before the announcement: that data center builders pay local communities a dividend while power prices climb. Amazon's money and land are a one-time version of that idea.
The harder test is a county with less leverage than Loudoun, or a developer with less appetite for a negotiated exit.