The largest civic umbrella group in Fairfax County has voted to oppose a proposed data center campus near the Alexandria border.

The Fairfax County Federation of Citizens Associations, which represents civic groups countywide including in McLean and Great Falls, voted Thursday, Aug. 27, to oppose the Plaza 500 project. The 34-acre, two-building data center campus at 6295 and 6299 Edsall Road in Lincolnia is proposed by Starwood Capital Group. The federation also opposed a five-acre electrical substation Dominion Energy wants to build to power the facility, FFXnow reported.

The federation's resolution cited the campus's location just 67 feet from the closest residential property line, a resource protection area bordering Turkeycock Run, and the broader economic and environmental impacts of data centers. Fairfax County's current rules require substations to be at least 100 feet from residential property lines. The proposed substation would sit well inside that buffer.

The vote adds the federation's countywide weight to opposition that has been building for months. More than 1,300 individuals and 29 organizations have signed a letter to Gov. Abigail Spanberger asking her to publicly oppose the project, according to Patch. Elected officials including Rep. Don Beyer (D-8), Mason District Supervisor Andres Jimenez, Alexandria Mayor Alyia Gaskins, state Sen. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-39), and House Majority Leader Charniele Herring (D-4) have all publicly opposed the substation.

Tyler Ray, president of the Bren Pointe Homeowners Association and founder of the Save Bren Mar Coalition, told federation members the proposed substation sits within two miles of about 85,000 residents in Fairfax County and Alexandria. The substation would generate 176 megawatts for the planned data center.

"The amount of energy that this would produce would be enough of a rough estimate to power between 40,120 homes based on its load," Ray said at the Aug. 27 meeting. "So, it's not your small substation that you see tucked into residential neighborhoods. It is a massive hyperscale."

The data center itself is allowed by right under the county's zoning rules. Starwood Capital submitted a site plan in 2024 after the county's stricter data center zoning standards, adopted that same year, were not applied to projects already under review. Residents had blocked an earlier attempt to rezone the site for industrial use in 2022, the Fairfax Times reported.

The substation, however, requires a public facilities review by the Planning Commission under Virginia law. That hearing is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 2. It had been delayed from Thursday, Sept. 24, at Dominion Energy's request to conduct more research. As of the federation's Aug. 27 meeting, the Mason District Land Use Committee was scheduled to make its recommendation on Tuesday, Sept. 22.

The federation also passed a separate resolution calling on the Virginia General Assembly to move up the sunset date for the state's data center sales tax exemption from June 30, 2035, to Jan. 1, 2028.

No public response from Starwood Capital Group or Dominion Energy regarding the federation's vote appeared in available records as of publication.

The opposition has one more hurdle ahead. Even if the Planning Commission rejects the substation, Dominion Energy has the right to appeal to the Board of Supervisors.