Project Loch: What Chesterfield Approved at Watkins Centre

Three data center buildings are planned for 350 acres off Route 288, about a mile and a half from Westchester Commons. The campus is Google's. The rezoning was approved in May 2025. Several of the details our business community asks about most — how much power the campus will draw, how many permanent positions it will support — have not yet been determined, because the project is still in design and permitting.

This post is a plain account of what the county approved, what conditions came with it, where the project stands today, and what remains genuinely unknown. It is not an argument for or against the project.

Last updated September 2026.

On May 28, 2025, the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors approved Case 25SN1040, rezoning 349.97 acres across eight parcels at 750 Watkins Centre Parkway from Agricultural (A) and General Industrial (I-2) to General Industrial (I-2).

The applicant was the Chesterfield County Economic Development Authority, which filed the rezoning in February 2025. The site sits west of Route 288 and south of Midlothian Turnpike, bounded on the west by Tomahawk Creek and reaching toward Old Hundred Road.

The approved plan is three data center buildings, each with its own dedicated on-site substation, plus internal roads, parking, utilities and stormwater facilities.

Rezoning conditions are what govern the finished campus. These are the ones the Board of Supervisors adopted:

Board of Supervisors Chair Jim Ingle marked the August 2025 announcement this way: "After seven years of working behind the scenes, we're thrilled to say Google… has chosen to invest right here in Chesterfield." Vice Chair Dr. Mark Miller added: "To work with the Rolls-Royce of data center operators means a lot."

Site work has not begun. Two processes are underway.

Federal wetlands permitting. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published public notice NAO-2026-00182 on May 13, 2026, with the comment period closing June 11, 2026. The application describes impacts to 4.77 acres of wetlands and 2,828 linear feet of stream channel. It also records 11.4 acres of wetlands avoided, with the northern portion of the campus designed to avoid wetland impacts entirely and retaining walls used on the south sides of two buildings to reduce encroachment. Mitigation is the purchase of 9.11 wetland credits and 3,119 stream credits from an approved mitigation bank.

Design and utilities. Google's Chesterfield project site puts mass grading and initial site work in the first quarter of 2027, with air permitting expected to begin in late 2026, water main extensions under design, and power dependent on Dominion Energy's interconnection queue. Google has said it will fund the required infrastructure improvements, including water main extensions along Dry Bridge Road and Watkins Centre Parkway, wastewater system upgrades, and road improvements coordinated with county and state transportation departments.

Google held two community open houses in July 2026 — July 15 at Brightpoint Community College and July 16 at Cosby High School — where residents asked about water and wastewater use, electricity demand and transmission, noise, permanent employment, and proximity to schools. Several of those answers depend on design and permitting decisions still ahead.

The county has published its arithmetic. More than $4.3 million a year per $1 billion invested — $2.7 million in real estate tax and $1.6 million in business personal property tax. The county's eastern campus alone, Project Peanut, is projected at at least $13 million a year, and all three Google campuses together at upwards of $40 million in annual revenue, which the county describes as equivalent to more than six cents on the local real estate tax rate.

For the Midlothian business community the nearer-term effects are the practical ones: construction contracting through the build, several years of construction traffic on Watkins Centre Parkway and at the Route 288 interchange, and a commercial tax base that carries more of the county's load relative to residential property.

Two developments since the approval are worth knowing, because they are often run together.

Data centers are no longer permitted by right. The county's zoning ordinance rewrite, effective January 1, 2026, removed data centers as a by-right use. New projects are allowed only in the Employment Center and Employment General districts, and only with a conditional use permit — which means a public hearing and a Board of Supervisors vote on each one.

In August 2026, county staff described the Board of Supervisors as not inclined to approve further data center rezonings. That is a stated position rather than an ordinance or a recorded vote, and it does not affect Loch, Skye or Peanut, which are already approved.

Several figures our business community asks about do not yet exist publicly, because the project is still in design:

The Midlothian Business Alliance's community affairs contributors include volunteers who serve in county appointed positions, including on the Chesterfield County Planning Commission. This post reports the public record and takes no position on the project.