Data center considered for Westpark property

By Audrey Carpenter

Developer Chuck Kuhn has plans to potentially build a data center at the former Westpark conference and hotel site.

The 7.58-acre parcel of land is currently zoned B-3, which allows for retail and commercial use. Kuhn is seeking to change the zoning to PEC Planned Employment Community District for the purpose of constructing one flex industrial or data center building. He has also requested a special exception to permit such usage.

The property is bordered to the west and south by the former Westpark golf course that closed in 2019. A 134-acre parcel was acquired by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in August 2022, and was placed in a conservation easement for passive open space use. The Loudoun County Department of Parks and Recreation announced in 2023 it would be turning the open space into a passive park and is underway with its design phase.

During a public meeting in April 2023, the Department of Parks and Recreation provided renderings of possible amenities and buildings to be built within the park, which included pavilions, bathrooms, a dog park, disc golf course, walking trails and a new parking lot. The County said it anticipates the park will be substantially completed by 2028.

While the majority of the former golf course will be converted into a park, the 7.58 acre parcel was retained by Kuhn. He submitted his rezoning application to the Town of Leesburg on Dec. 13, 2022 under the name Clubhouse Dr, LLC.

Then at the request of a community member, a month later on Jan. 25, 2023, Kuhn and his development team met with residents who live in neighborhoods surrounding Westpark. At that meeting, drawings were shown and the development team presented its proposal to build a flex industrial building and said the concept it was going for would be similar to Leesburg Tech Park on Sycolin Road.

No data center was mentioned at that meeting either in the presentation nor during the question and answer session afterward between the residents and the development team. Neither the development team, nor Kuhn, who was present at the meeting, said the parcel could potentially be used for purposes other than a flex industrial building or that they were even considering that.

However, three months after the January community meeting, on April 14, 2023, Kuhn’s team submitted plans to the Town to use the parcel as a data center during a second round of submissions, which can be seen here on page 5: https://portal.laserfiche.com/Portal/ElectronicFile.aspx?docid=651771&repo=r-165d21d4

Ryan Goeller of KLNB, a commercial real estate services company, is part of Kuhn’s Westpark Tech development team. In a KLNB brochure used for marketing purposes to attract potential tenants for Westpark Tech, there is no mention of a data center.

See brochure here: https://klnb.propertycapsule.com/property/output/document/view/id:22281

The brochure mentions the following possible uses: bank, brewpub, child care center, fitness or dance studio, restaurant establishment, emergency care facility, hotel, office, recreational facility or school.

When asked for comment on the Westpark site potentially being developed into a data center, Goeller said in an email, “We do not have a specific building designed, only a footprint, which I think has been circulated and shown at the public information meeting we held. I think the info you received from the town was a little misleading. We are re-zoning the property to light industrial zoning which allows data center development, but the town was asking if we would proffer out the data center use despite it being an allowed use within the zoning district we are asking for.”

“We are asking that that use remain an allowable use under that zoning district. We would like to remain flexible and let the market dictate the demand for whether we would develop a data center or flex industrial property. In either scenario the foot print of the building and architecture of the building would be the same or very similar. The verdict is still out whether this site will work as a data center due to its small size, but the industry is rapidly changing and we’d like to keep that option open if the opportunity arises,” he added.

“If I was a neighbor to the property, I would look at the potential for a data center use as a good thing, as almost zero traffic comes with a data center. In either case, I can say that the town has been very diligent in making sure that whatever development goes here is architecturally pleasing and will conform to strict development guidelines that have been put in place,” he concluded.

Neighbors to the property

Neighbors to the Westpark property have dealt with three years of turmoil. Many owners of Leesburg Estates, Leesburg Country Club and Country Club Green Condominium neighborhoods bought their homes specifically because of the beautiful views of the golf course, which now looks vastly different from the once pristine and manicured fairways.

After Kuhn sold the majority of his land to Loudoun County, the land was left largely unattended, except for occasional grass cutting. It took only a few seasons for grass to grow excessively tall, large trees to remain where they fell, and all kinds of woodland creatures to start inhabiting the land.

During the Fall of 2021, the Country Club Green Condominium community had to install new outside vent covers on all its buildings that face the former golf course due to an infestation of mice that were living among the tall grasses of the golf course and seeking warmth during the cold season. Several condo owners reported the mice came in off the golf course and into their units. One owner reported walking into a dead mouse in the middle of his kitchen.

The owner of 123 Clubhouse Drive SW stated he had to get his home professionally treated several times to flush out the mice. And an elderly owner kept catching mice in traps inside his unit.

An increase in ticks was also noticed during the summer of 2022 after an owner who walked her dog on the land said she discovered several ticks on her dog after arriving back home.

Then came teenagers and homeless encampments on the grounds. Tarps, chairs, tires and an assortment of other odds and ends were brought onto the land and set up for habitation with nearby trees and ground being spray painted. The encampments were eventually noticed, reported and removed.

Homeowners from the Leesburg Country Club neighborhood reported groups of teens and young adults partying and socializing after dark and in some instances disturbing the grounds and being excessively loud. The grounds are not permitted for use after dark.

During this time, excessive vandalism of the abandoned Westpark conference center began. Vandals repeatedly broke in through unsecured doors and smashed almost every single window in the conference center, broke and threw furniture, chemicals and all manner of material out the windows, and spray painted graffiti on every floor.

Despite the Town on Oct. 5, 2022 approving an application submitted by Kuhn to demolish the dilapidated conference center, Kuhn has not demolished the building. Eventually, with the building left standing, vandalism turned into arson.

Leesburg Police installed security cameras at Westpark and in January 2023 caught three individuals who were charged with entering the dwelling with intent to commit arson, burning a structure, and conspiracy to commit a felony. Since then, two of the three defendants have had their charges dropped by former Loudoun County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Alexis Downing.

The third defendant, Marco Alexander Mendoza Monjaras, is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 18 and plead guilty, according to court documents.

There has also been a problem with commercial trucks, tow trucks, boats, trailers, campers and 18-wheelers parked in front of the Westpark conference center using the area as storage for their vehicles instead of parking those vehicles at their places of business. The Town had to install signage along Clubhouse Drive SW last Fall to keep encroachment into the residentially-zoned portion of the road at bay. Clubhouse Drive SW currently has broken glass on the road directly in front of the Westpark clubhouse and is an area where people frequently litter.

“I’d say we’ve been pretty tolerant neighbors so far. But to say neighbors should welcome a data center in our backyards is absurd. I don’t want to be sitting at a pavilion looking at a data center when I’m having a cookout with my family. Where is the beauty and nature in that?” said a resident who did not want to be identified.

“On the most basic level while the location of this particular potential data center is concerning, the bigger concern is the collateral impacts all data centers have,” said Michael Myers, executive director of Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy. Data centers have intensive need for electricity, cooling and water resources.

In his organization’s work with other neighborhoods where data centers have been placed in close proximity to residential areas, neighbors complained of a low humming noise, he said. “You want data centers to be compatible with their surrounding environments.”

The Town is currently waiting for a response from comments it sent to the Westpark Tech development team on Oct. 27, 2023. According to the Community Development Department, key outstanding issues with the application include compliance with Zoning Ordinance use standards, parking, building architecture, landscaping and buffering, traffic and transportation, and storm water management.

The department said a possible March/April 2024 time frame is anticipated for a Planning Commission public hearing.