TA Realty pays $60M for approved Sterling data-center land

TA Realty paid $60 million, roughly $6.1 million an acre, for fewer than 10 approved acres in Sterling, Virginia, and the per-acre number is the story: fully entitled data-center ground in Data Center Alley has never been scarcer.

Why it matters

Loudoun County removed data centers as a by-right use, so pre-approved sites are now the rarest commodity in the world’s densest data-center market, and TA is paying a premium to skip the entitlement gauntlet that just killed a 1,940-acre campus next door in Prince William. For developers, the trade quantifies the value of entitlement itself: $6.1 million an acre for site-plan-approved dirt is what certainty costs when the approval process, not power or land, is the binding constraint. Buy the entitlement, not just the acreage.

The numbers

TA’s data-center arm, TA Digital Group, bought 45564 Thayer Road, 9.82 acres south of Dulles Town Center, from Chuck Kuhn’s JK Land Holdings in an off-market deal that closed June 8. The site is zoned for data centers with site-plan approval for a two-story building. Kuhn framed the price as the market value for fully entitled, approved ground in the area. TA’s platform now controls more than 12 projects representing nearly 3 gigawatts across Virginia, Chicago and Atlanta.

What’s next

Watch whether more approved Loudoun sites trade at or above $6 million an acre, the benchmark that tells developers what pre-entitled data-center land is really worth now that by-right is gone. Scarcity of approvals, not land, sets the price. Track the beat at the data centers hub.