Market guide / Richmond

Richmond colocation: Northern Virginia's overflow, with delivery tied to the phase.

Ten operational buildings, ten under construction, fifty nine planned. No market we cover is this far out over its own future, and that gap is the whole Richmond conversation.

Richmond data center market

How much does colocation cost in Richmond?

Recent quotes we received for Northeast ran $200 to $240 per kW per month for up to 500 kW, falling to $165 to $205 above 1 MW.

Richmond colocation pricing, USD per kW per month. Our quotes are for Northeast, updated October 26, 2026.
DeploymentMonthly rateSource
Up to 500 kW$200 to $240/kW-moOur quotes
Over 500 kW to 1 MW$180 to $220/kW-moOur quotes
Over 1 MW$165 to $205/kW-moOur quotes

The Northeast Region ranges cover Virginia. They are regional planning figures, not a Richmond-specific asking-rent benchmark; a quote must name the building, power commitment and delivery date.

Smaller deployments cost more per kW. These are recent quotes we received, not a statement that space is available. Cross-connects, remote hands and one-time setup are extra. Operators often give 2–3 free months on a new term. See every region's quote ranges.

Comparing cabinets and cages. For a cabinet or private cage, ask for the total monthly charge and usable power together. For a larger phase, have the operator identify the approvals and power delivery behind the quoted start date. See private cage colocation and how power is billed.

Capacity operators are offering here

  • 48 MW in Richmond, available 2028 (confirmed October 23, 2026) AC-030
  • 48 MW in Richmond, available 2028 (confirmed October 23, 2026) AC-031

Operator-reported and dated, not a reservation. The building is named on a call. See every listing.

Get Richmond colocation prices for your setup

Tell us the racks, power and timing you need. A scout compares Richmond options by building, quoted price and delivery date.

Sample comparison of six colocation options side by side: monthly cost, committed power, dollars per kW, setup, term and deployment timing.
What you get back: every quote on one sheet, priced per kW so the options compare. This is a sample.
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Who is actually plugged in across Richmond

A building existing and a building being connected are different facts, and only one of them decides whether your traffic can get where it needs to go cheaply. These figures come from PeeringDB, which the network operators themselves maintain, so every row below links to the building's own public entry.

Public record6 buildings listed38 network presences
MeasureFigureWhat it means
Buildings listed6Registered in PeeringDB across Richmond, by 5 operators
Buildings with a network present42 carry no network presence, which usually means single tenant or simply unregistered
Network presences38Counted per building, so a carrier in three buildings counts three times
Internet exchange presences5Where you can reach many networks through one port instead of many cross-connects
Carrier presences3The physical transport choice you can buy without leaving the building
In the densest building58%QTS Richmond (RIC1) holds 22 of the market's network presences

The most connected buildings here

NetworksBuildingOperatorExchangesCarriers
22QTS Richmond (RIC1)QTS Realty Trust, Inc.33
12Pixel Factory Data CenterPixel Factory Data Center10
3EdgeConneX Richmond (EDCRIC01)EdgeConneX Inc.10
1Flexential - Richmond (RIC01/02)Flexential Corp.00

From PeeringDB, which is maintained by the network operators present in these buildings rather than by the landlords, which is what makes it worth more than a directory. Two limits. Entries are voluntary, so a building showing no networks may be single tenant or may simply never have registered. And a network being present says nothing about whether the building has space, power or a price for you: that is still a call.

Market profile

Why Richmond exists as a data center market at all

Richmond is a hundred miles south of Ashburn, on the same Dominion Energy system, with land that costs a fraction of Loudoun County's and a power queue that was, for a while, considerably shorter. When Northern Virginia's constraint stopped being land and started being electricity, developers went looking for the nearest place with the same utility and fewer neighbors. That place is Richmond.

It is a genuine market rather than a spillover story, because the anchor was already here. White Oak Technology Park in eastern Henrico County has hosted large-scale computing since the semiconductor era, and the fiber that follows Interstate 95 gives Richmond a real path north to Ashburn and south to the Carolinas. What is new is the scale of what has been announced on top of it.

Read the ratio before the rankings

Fifty nine of the eighty facilities we track here are planned rather than built. In Silicon Valley that ratio is twenty one of a hundred and forty four. A market that is mostly planned is a market where your delivery date depends on somebody else's construction schedule, and where the operator quoting you may not yet own the power.

What has been announced in Richmond

Announcements are not filings. Nobody has to build what they announce, the figure is the one the developer chose to publish, and the date moves. They are here because megawatts are what a requirement is measured in, and because the size of what is coming changes who will take your call. Every figure below links to a published report that states it, and was checked against at least one other independent report before it was written down.

Announced, not filed2 projectsLargest: 900 MW
CapacityOperatorProjectWhat was announced
900 MWUndisclosed developerUpper Magnolia Green, Chesterfield CountyPhased to 2031 or 2033, with Dominion building new high voltage lines to serve it. Announced capacity at full build-out
200 MWIron MountainWhite Oak Technology Park, Henrico County66 acres, four buildings, more than 1 million SF, over $1bn
Read this before quoting any of it

Richmond is the market where the rules changed under the developers. From 10 January 2025 Henrico County requires a provisional use permit for any new hyperscale data center, ending by-right development, and it applies retroactively to rezoned projects that have not yet reached final site plan approval. The conditions attached are specific: a 500 foot tree buffer from homes, limits on generator testing, enclosed noise equipment, closed-loop cooling. Read any Henrico delivery date as a date plus a public hearing. Read the reporting.

Announced capacity is collected by hand from trade reporting and company statements, and each figure links to the report it came from. It is kept apart from the permit record below and never added to it: one is a document a jurisdiction issued, the other is a plan a company published. Neither is availability.

The rules changed under the developers, and that is now the market

On 10 January 2025 Henrico County ended by-right data center development. Every new hyperscale project now needs a provisional use permit, which means a public hearing at the Planning Commission and again at the Board of Supervisors, and the requirement reaches back to rezoned projects that have not yet reached final site plan approval.

The conditions are specific rather than symbolic: a five hundred foot tree buffer between a data center and homes, limits on when generators can be tested, enclosed and screened noise equipment, closed-loop cooling. Every one of those is a cost, and several are a schedule.

For a buyer this matters in one practical way. A Richmond delivery date is a date plus a hearing calendar. Ask which approvals a phase already holds, not which ones the developer expects, and ask what happens to your commencement date if a hearing slips a cycle.

Every Richmond facility we track

80 data centers across Richmond, from our verified inventory. It is the layer that says whether a building exists yet, which no permit record answers directly.

Our collection80 facilities17 operators
StatusFacilitiesWhat it means for a search
Operational10Standing and running. The only layer that can hold a requirement this year
Under construction10Steel is up. Reachable for a date 6 to 18 months out, and usually pre-leasing now
Planned59Announced or entitled, not yet built. Treat every date on these as a forecast
Building area on file18,730,812 SFAcross the 40 facilities where a size is recorded, of 80
Largest single building3,500,000 SFPowerHouse Data Centers, Spotsylvania

Operators with the most facilities here: QTS (31), STACK Infrastructure (9), AVAIO Digital (7), PointOne Development Corp. (6), Iron Mountain Data Centers (5), Chirisa Technology Parks (4), Menlo Digital (4), CleanArc Data Centers (3), PowerHouse Data Centers (2), Tract (2).

Where they cluster: Sandston (36), Ruther Glen (18), Charles City (6), Chester (5), Petersburg (4), Richmond (3).

The largest buildings coming to this market

69 facilities here are under construction or planned. These are the ten largest by floor area, and a size on file is not a promise of a delivery date.

OperatorStatusBuilding sizeWhere
PowerHouse Data CentersPlanned3,500,000 SFSpotsylvania, VA
QTSPlanned1,193,100 SFSandston, VA
QTSPlanned562,626 SFSandston, VA
PointOne Development Corp.Planned503,328 SFCharles City, VA
PointOne Development Corp.Planned503,328 SFCharles City, VA
QTSPlanned500,430 SFSandston, VA
CleanArc Data CentersPlanned490,400 SFRuther Glen, VA
CleanArc Data CentersPlanned490,400 SFRuther Glen, VA
CleanArc Data CentersPlanned490,400 SFRuther Glen, VA
Iron Mountain Data CentersPlanned478,846 SFSandston, VA

From our verified inventory rather than from a public record, so these rows carry no filing link and street addresses are held back. These buildings are verified, which is not the same as their space being available: every facility above may be full, pre-leased, or closed to your size. Finding out is a call, not a lookup. See what a verified building does and does not mean.

What the public construction record shows in Richmond

Virginia air permits filed in the Richmond corridor, from Henrico out to Louisa and Caroline. Every figure below is a count of filings we collected ourselves, and every row links to the record it came from.

Our collectionLatest filing: 24 September 202627 filings tracked
MeasureFigureWhat it means
Filings we track27Deduplicated. Across 2 sources, August 2024 to September 2026
Filed in the last 12 months5The live rate of construction activity, which is the number that moves
Distinct addresses4Separate sites in the record, not separate buildings
Operators we can name217 of 27 filings name a recognizable operator. The rest name an engineer, a builder or a holding company
Filings with no date published20The source publishes the facility, not the filing date

Operators appearing by name: QTS (14), Amazon Web Services (3).

The filings on the record

FiledNamed on the filingWhat it saysType
24 September 2026QTSQTS Richmond Data CenterPower and cooling
26 June 2026Amazon Web ServicesAmazon Data Services Inc IAD-450Power and cooling
2 March 2026QTSQTS Richmond Data CenterPower and cooling
1 December 2025Amazon Web ServicesNortheast Creek Technology CampusPower and cooling
24 November 2025Not an identifiable operatorClean Arc Data Centers - VA-1 CampusPower and cooling
14 October 2025Amazon Web ServicesAmazon Data Services Inc - IAD-457Power and cooling
30 August 2024QTSQTS Richmond Data CenterPower and cooling
No date publishedQTSQts - Cub No. 1 Utility ImprovementsType not stated

Collected from Virginia DEQ air permit records and Henrico County plan of development records. A permit or air-register entry documents a site or proposed work. It does not establish current construction or available space, and no public filing anywhere discloses what is contractible at a named building. That answer comes from an operator call, which is the part we do by hand. See how we verify capacity.

Where the market actually is, submarket by submarket

Eastern Henrico and Sandston

White Oak Technology Park and the ground around it. The oldest large-scale computing footprint in the region, the most operator names on the record, and now the strictest permit path in the market.

Chesterfield County

Where the largest announcements have gone, including a proposal phased toward 900 MW that Dominion is building new high voltage lines to serve. Almost entirely forward-looking.

Ruther Glen and Caroline County

The I-95 corridor between Richmond and Fredericksburg. Cheap land, hyperscale-led, and the part of the market most likely to be sold to you as "Richmond" when it is an hour from downtown.

Downtown and the city core

The interconnection layer, small and network-facing. This is where a modest enterprise requirement is realistically served today, not on the campuses in the headlines.

Power is the reason to be here, and the reason to check twice

Richmond runs on Dominion, the same utility as Northern Virginia, which is both the attraction and the catch. The attraction is a utility with deep data center experience and a genuine transmission plan. The catch is that Dominion's load growth is now a statewide political question, and the same regulatory pressure that reshaped Loudoun's economics reaches Chesterfield and Henrico too.

The questions worth asking are unglamorous and they decide your date.

  • Is the power for this phase energized, contracted, or queued, and what is the queue position?
  • Does the campus have a dedicated substation, or is it sharing distribution with everything else on the circuit?
  • Which transmission work does the delivery date assume, and who is building it?
  • What tariff class applies at my size, and does a large-load rider change the economics?
  • If a provisional use permit hearing slips, what does my contract say about the commencement date?

When Richmond is the right answer

Richmond fits when you want Northern Virginia's network reach without Northern Virginia's pricing, when you are planning far enough ahead to buy into a phase rather than a standing hall, and when a hundred miles of separation from Ashburn is a resilience feature rather than a latency problem. For a second site to an existing Ashburn primary it is close to ideal: same utility region, same fiber routes, genuinely different local risk.

It is the wrong answer when you need space this quarter. The operational layer here is thin, and a market that is three quarters planned cannot absorb an urgent requirement. If your date is inside twelve months, run Northern Virginia first and treat Richmond as the expansion option you negotiate now and take later.

South of here, Mecklenburg County around Boydton is a Microsoft self-build market with nothing to lease. A Southern Virginia colocation search usually ends back in Richmond.

Best buying posture

Price Richmond against Ashburn in the same conversation, and make the Richmond operator quote you a phase with its permit status attached. The discount is real. So is the chance that the building is a year later than the brochure, and only one of those two things gets volunteered.

Richmond search

Find out which Richmond phase is actually permitted.

A scout can test the Richmond market against your power, density and date, tell you which buildings exist today, and price it beside Ashburn so the comparison is honest.

From the research desk

Latest market developments

All news & analysis
Development & Power

Virginia regulators cite Google's Project Peanut data center site in Chesterfield County for seven sediment incidents outside its water permit

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality issued Notice of Violation No. 2026-08-PRO-203 on September 29, 2026 to Peanut LLC, the responsible party for Project Peanut in Chesterfield County, under Virginia Water Protection Permit No. 19-1094. The notice was emailed to a google.com address. It cites unauthorized filling of surface waters outside permitted impact areas reported on seven dates between December 30, 2025 and August 5, 2026, and estimates that about 7,735 linear feet of stream channel and about 1.4 acres of wetland were affected by sediment. [Source 1] Google told local media that heavy rainfall overwhelmed stormwater controls and that it temporarily paused general construction to focus on cleanup. [Source 2]

Chesterfield County, Virginia · Under construction (site work), per DEQ observations of project-related activities from December 2025 to August 2026. Notice of violation issued September 29, 2026; enforcement pending. Google told local media it temporarily paused general construction for cleanup. As of October 12, 2026.
Read the analysis
Development & Power

Virginia executive order cuts state fast track help for new data centers of 25 MW or more

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed Executive Order 22 on September 18, 2026. Effective on signing, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership may not give site readiness, expedited permitting or similar discretionary help to a new data center project with anticipated peak electrical demand of 25 MW or more. The order also bars state agencies from new data center nondisclosure agreements and starts work on backup generator, noise and cooling water rules. [Source 1]

Virginia (statewide) · Executive order signed and effective September 18, 2026. Agency rules, studies and 2027 legislative proposals are pending and are not law.
Read the analysis