The disclosure and our analysis
Evidence dates
Evidence: Loudoun County news release posted October 22, 2026, describing the Board of Supervisors vote at its October 20, 2026 meeting. Read October 25, 2026.
What the county announced
The county describes a tentative deal reached after negotiations between Amazon Web Services, Board Chair Phyllis J. Randall and county officials. Chair Randall and Amazon call it Project Potomac Promise. [Source 1]
1. **Land:** Amazon agreed to convey about 25 acres to the county, which the county values at a fair market value of $65 million. The county says it may use the land for an indoor sports and recreation facility and a community arts center. [Source 1]
2. **Rezoning:** the board agreed to fast track rezoning of the remaining 97 acres, which Amazon will keep, to permit a broad range of housing and mixed use development. [Source 1]
3. **Housing fund:** Amazon offered to donate $5 million to the county's housing trust fund. [Source 1]
4. **Data centers:** Amazon stated its intent to withdraw its application for data centers at the site and to forgo any legal action over data center development there. Chair Randall is quoted saying there will be no data centers or infrastructure supporting data centers on the campus. [Source 1]
The county says the university will keep operating at the site for the next four and a half years, and that AWS plans to keep using the existing university buildings for educational purposes. [Source 1]
Status
This is a preliminary agreement as of October 25, 2026. The board's vote authorizes the county administrator to keep negotiating with AWS to finalize terms in the coming weeks and months. The release says Amazon stated its intent to withdraw its data center application; it does not say the withdrawal has been filed. The housing and mixed use rezoning has not yet been approved.
The county release does not give the size, building count or power of the data center plan that would be dropped. We have not used figures from other reports because we could not confirm them in a primary source.
Buyer analysis
This is our analysis, not the county's or Amazon's. A planned Amazon data center site in Ashburn, the core of the Northern Virginia market, is set to become housing instead. The site was planned for Amazon's own use, so this does not remove colocation inventory that a buyer could have leased. It does show how hard new data center entitlements have become inside Loudoun.
For buyers, that points to existing and already approved Ashburn campuses carrying more of the market's future supply, and to more new capacity landing in neighboring counties. Buyers with Northern Virginia requirements should weight entitled and energized space over proposals that still need Loudoun approvals.
