According to DCD, Amazon Data Services has purchased the 270-acre Devlin Technology Park site in Bristow, Virginia for $700 million. The deal closed in late October 2025 after months of speculation about Amazon’s interest in the property. Stanley Martin Homes sold the land after acquiring it for less than $60 million and successfully getting it rezoned for data center use in November 2023. The site can accommodate up to 3.5 million square feet of data center space and three electrical substations. At roughly $3.7 million per acre, Amazon paid well above the already high market rate for data center-zoned land in Virginia.
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<h2 id="land-grab-economics”>The Virginia land grab is getting wild
Let’s talk about that price for a second. Stanley Martin bought this land for under $60 million and flipped it for $700 million in about four years. That’s an absolutely insane return, even for the hot Northern Virginia data center market. And Amazon was apparently willing to pay it because they need the capacity. The company already has more than 50 data centers in the region, with dozens more in development.
Why this massive expansion matters
Here’s the thing – Amazon’s US-East Northern Virginia region is basically the heart of the corporate internet. When your Netflix streams, your Zoom calls, or your company’s cloud applications run, there’s a good chance they’re touching this infrastructure. Amazon reportedly had about 1.7GW of capacity back in 2019 and has been doubling down ever since. With AI workloads exploding and every company moving to the cloud, they need this space desperately.
The local opposition reality
This deal didn’t happen without controversy. Stanley Martin faced significant local opposition and legal battles to get the land rezoned. Data centers bring massive power demands and water usage for cooling, which creates tension with communities. But the economic incentives are just too compelling for local governments to ignore. Basically, these facilities generate huge tax revenue without adding much traffic or requiring local schools.
The elephant in the room: energy
All these data centers need enormous amounts of power, and that’s where things get tricky. Greenpeace has criticized Amazon for not meeting its renewable energy commitments as its cloud business expands. When you’re building facilities that can consume as much electricity as a medium-sized city, the environmental impact becomes a real concern. Amazon’s basically betting that the demand for cloud computing will continue exploding, and they’re willing to pay whatever it takes to secure the land and power infrastructure to support it.
