ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Opponents of the Dominion Energy substation that would power a data center just across the Fairfax County line will march in Alexandria's West End next month, calling for the application to be denied and for a moratorium on data centers in Virginia.
The march begins at noon Saturday, Oct. 10, at 950 S. Pickett St. Participants will rally at Aslin Beer Co., march to the Plaza 500 site down the street and gather back at the brewery afterward. Local speakers are planned, and Spanish interpretation will be available.
Organizers describe it as Alexandria's stop on Virginia's March for a Moratorium, a two-week series of events across the state calling for a pause on new data center development. The Save Bren Mar Coalition is organizing the Alexandria event. Margaret Williams, a Watergate at Landmark resident who alerted the Brief to it, said the Sierra Club and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network are handling permitting.
The site is about a 25-minute walk from the Van Dorn Metro station on the Blue Line. Organizers encourage transit and carpooling.
It comes about seven weeks before the only public hearing tied to the project. The Fairfax County Planning Commission was scheduled to take up Dominion's substation application Sept. 24 but moved it to 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2 at Dominion's request, with the utility saying it needed time to answer questions about noise levels, lighting, and electromagnetic field emissions.
The data center campus itself was approved by right under Fairfax County's light industrial zoning and never went before a public body for a vote. The substation requires a public facilities review under Virginia Code § 15.2-2232, which asks whether its location, character and extent are in substantial accord with the county's comprehensive plan. The Planning Commission has the final say.
Ryan Belmore
Alexandria has no vote. The land is in Fairfax County. City Council asked the county to deny the substation in an Aug. 3 letter from Mayor Alyia Gaskins, and Mason District Supervisor Andres Jimenez, Rep. Don Beyer and a coalition of 33 civic and environmental groups have also urged denial.
Starwood Capital Group is redeveloping the 34-acre Plaza 500 site at 6299 Edsall Road into a data center campus. Dominion's substation there would serve a requested load of 176 megawatts. The Save Bren Mar Coalition says it would sit 67 feet from the closest homes.
The coalition describes itself as local residents not affiliated with any organization or company. Ray, who is president of the Bren Pointe Homeowners Association, started a GoFundMe in November 2024 that has raised about $6,300 of a $10,000 goal from 54 donors. The page says the money goes to the homeowners association for legal, advocacy and communication expenses, and that five community associations around the site are contributing to the effort.
The coalition is also pressing Gov. Abigail Spanberger to intervene. After she announced a data center accountability framework and signed an executive order last week, coalition founder Tyler Ray said the measures would be meaningless to his community unless the Planning Commission denies the substation application, sending the project back to the drawing board so the new standards could apply. The coalition says nearly 2,000 individuals and 40 organizations have signed its letter to the governor.
Starwood Digital Ventures has called the redevelopment an opportunity for Fairfax County to replace an active industrial site with a less obtrusive investment, and said it is working with Dominion and the county to keep the substation community-conscious and low-impact. Dominion says the substation is needed to serve the site and will improve reliability for surrounding neighborhoods.
