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A Tysons office complex could be transformed into a 316,228-square-foot data center campus just over 100 feet from nearby apartments and townhouses under a proposal awaiting review by Fairfax County.
California-based Serverfarm is seeking a special exception to replace the aging office buildings at 7990 and 7980 Quantum Drive with a modern, purpose-built facility called Vienna Cloud. The 14.4-acre property already houses some data center tenants, but the redevelopment would dedicate the entire complex to processing digital data.
The site is in an industrial district where data centers are permitted by right. However, county approval is needed because the proposed buildings would exceed an 80,000-square-foot limit established when the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors revised its zoning rules in 2024.
The project would also fall short of the county’s 200-foot minimum separation between data centers and residential areas. Plans place the buildings between 107 and 131 feet from the Reserve at Tysons Corner apartments to the south and the Heritage Point Townhouses to the west.
Serverfarm is not proposing to move the structures closer to those neighborhoods. The application says the new facilities would maintain the setbacks of the existing office buildings, which were constructed in 1978.
Land-use attorney Jill Parks said in a March 11 statement that Serverfarm creates facilities tailored to individual customers and designs them to fit the neighborhoods they serve. The company appears to be entering the Washington region for the first time.
The buildings would rise no higher than 67 feet. Plans call for extensive landscaping and new trees on all sides to soften their appearance and provide screening for surrounding homes.
Serverfarm would also build a 5-foot-wide sidewalk along Kidwell Drive and an asphalt trail connecting the northern end of the property with Quantum Field. The athletic field, built on the site in 2019 by The Meridian Group, would receive graphic artwork on a screening wall and a new adjoining playground.
The application contends that the redevelopment would generate less traffic than the property’s current mix of offices and data centers. A noise study commissioned by Serverfarm also concluded that the replacement buildings would not increase noise levels.
Serverfarm describes Vienna Cloud as a major reinvestment that would replace an outdated facility with a contemporary data center designed for greater reliability, efficiency and compatibility with the surrounding community.
The zoning request was filed in late January but has not yet been formally accepted for review by Fairfax County staff.
The proposal arrives as data centers face heightened scrutiny over their effects on nearby communities, electricity demand and the environment. Fairfax County officials recently drew criticism for approving the sale of publicly owned land in Chantilly to a data center developer.
The industry is also at the center of a dispute in Richmond. Conflicting positions in the House of Delegates and state Senate over extending data center sales-tax exemptions have contributed to a Virginia budget stalemate that remained unresolved after the General Assembly ended its regular session March 14.