Compass Datacenters

Compass Datacenters withdrew its roughly 2,000-acre data-centre project in Prince William County, Virginia after the Virginia Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court ruling blocking the fast-tracked rezoning in late April 2026. The company said it would not appeal. The site was planned near Manassas National Battlefield Park, and its approval had been challenged on grounds of inadequate public notice. The withdrawal removes what would have been a significant addition to Northern Virginia's data-centre cluster at a moment when all three major Virginia counties simultaneously tightened development rules.

Compass Datacenters is a privately held US colocation and hyperscale data-centre developer, founded in 2011 and headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The company operates campuses across the United States, with a particular concentration in high-growth markets including Texas, Virginia, and the Southeast. Its projects typically range from 30 MW to several hundred MW of capacity, targeting both hyperscaler wholesale customers and enterprise colocation clients. Compass is backed by Brookfield Asset Management, which invested in the company in 2020.

The Prince William withdrawal is Compass's most public setback in the Northern Virginia market, where land availability near existing grid infrastructure has become the critical constraint. The consent and judicial environment in Northern Virginia — once reliably operator-friendly — has shifted in a single legislative season, with courts, planning commissions, and county boards all moving simultaneously.