QTS Realty Trust filed an appeal Apr 30 (hours before the deadline) to the Virginia Supreme Court asking it to overturn the Court of Appeals ruling that nullified Prince William County's 2023 zoning amendments authorizing the 22M sqft Digital Gateway corridor. Petition argues the Court of Appeals committed errors of law in invalidating three County zoning amendments. The other co-developer, Compass Datacenters, withdrew from the project earlier; PWC said it would not put further money into appeals. Reported as the largest planned data center corridor in the country.
Primary source · Washington Post ↗
Why it matters
Add to the open-investigations queue with a watch on the Supreme Court's discretionary review decision (months out, typically). The legal theory is the leading edge of the local-zoning vs state-policy fight — a state-level Supreme Court reinstatement would reset the playbook for hostile-county hyperscaler sites; refusal would harden the precedent that local zoning challenges can nullify approved data center campuses even years post-approval. This is exactly the site readiness-risk surface the regulatory-knowledge-graph + approval-outcomes corpus is positioned to track. The fact that one of two co-developers (Compass) already walked is itself underwriting-relevant: it confirms 'litigation overhang' is now a real input to data center site valuation, not just zoning approval. Useful counterweight to the Dominion 51 GW contracted figure — load is contracted but the underlying buildable site supply is being eroded by exactly this kind of ruling. The two numbers together tell the supply-demand story better than either does alone.
Related filings
Prince George's County MD 2-year statutory moratorium / expected vote today Tue Jul 7 / Chair Krystal Oriadha says has votes not unanimous / replaces Braveboy EO expiring Sep 30 / 11-member council 6 needed / 2nd most populous MD county 955k / adjacent to DC / diversification-away-from-VA siting site / with Montgomery + Washington ~40% MD population under 12+ mo freeze / effective statewide MD removal through 2028 / fourth pattern county-cluster-reaches-critical-mass
Plain-English background on why the Prince George's vote today matters as more than a local ordinance. Prince George's County is the second-largest county in Maryland by population (~955k residents), immediately east of Washington DC. It sits inside the PJM...
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Plain-English background on why the PJM 2028/29 auction closing today matters more than a routine capacity procurement. PJM Interconnection operates the regional grid across 13 states and DC (roughly PA/NJ/MD/DE/VA/WV/OH/IL/IN/KY/NC/TN/MI and DC) — 65 million...
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Plain-English background on why 'statewide' and '1 MW threshold' are the two most important words in this item. Until this week, every US data center moratorium was either a county ordinance (Linn IA, Washington MD, Prince George's MD, Whitley IN, Clark IN,...
T-7 ERCOT ILLE Form W Jul 10 / T-21 Form W step 2 Jul 24 / PJM 2028-29 auction closes Jul 7 / results Jul 14 / price band $175-325 MW-day / 13-state governor pre-negotiated band / MD FERC ratepayer complaint comment deadline Jul 27 extended / NY A11560 not delivered to Hochul / 10-day clock not started / passive enactment plausible / 4 deadline-anchored windows next 24 days
Plain-English background on why the four operational-track deadlines all matter this month. Each of these deadlines drives a specific action by developers, hyperscalers, or state parties, and each represents a concrete moment where Cliff can produce a...