DC Corp announced the opening of a planned, customizable data center in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on September 20, 2013. The company’s primary target was the federal market: it argued that Martinsburg was close to Washington, D.C., but outside the capital’s “blast zone.” It also pursued higher-education customers through dark-fiber and Internet2 connectivity.
The announcement established a facility launch and a sales strategy—not federal contract wins, occupancy, certifications, or long-term operating success. Available sources do not establish whether the site remains an operating data center in 2026.
What DC Corp opened
DC Corp described the project as a build-to-suit data center created by retrofitting a roughly 180,000-square-foot building at the John D. Rockefeller Science and Technology Center near Martinsburg and Eastern Regional Airport. About 11,000 square feet was identified as office space. Contemporary coverage placed the site approximately 90 minutes from Washington, D.C., although actual travel time varies.
“Opening” should be read as the launch and marketing of a facility designed for customer build-outs. The September 20, 2013 report did not provide an IT-load figure, rack count, commissioned capacity, uptime tier, certification list, named tenant or completed federal deployment.
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A later Berkeley County planning document refers to DC Corporation as a startup IT company located in the airport complex and associates it with the Rockefeller Science and Technology Center. That corroborates the regional setting but does not document current ownership, utilization or operations (Berkeley County document).
Why Martinsburg fit the federal pitch
CEO Chuck Asbury II said the federal government was DC Corp’s “main focus.” The company’s positioning was straightforward: locate close enough to agencies and contractors in the Washington region for access, while remaining outside the D.C. “blast zone.” That could support geographic separation and potentially lower real-estate and operating costs than core Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland markets.
“Outside the blast zone” was a company positioning phrase, not a federal certification or formal resilience standard. A nearby facility can still share regional power, telecommunications, fuel, weather and cyber risks with the broader Mid-Atlantic. The contemporary account did not document flood analysis, seismic or tornado assessments, utility redundancy, generator capacity, fuel storage or physically diverse fiber routes.
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Federal buyers also evaluate controls that cannot be inferred from a location: physical security, personnel screening, continuity-of-operations plans, incident response, network diversity, data-access controls, procurement vehicles and required authorizations. Federal data-center policy during this period emphasized dependable power, backup equipment and environmental controls as part of consolidation and modernization (Congressional Research Service overview). Nothing in the available DC Corp reporting shows a FedRAMP authorization, classified-workload approval, facility clearance or agency authority to operate.
The build-to-suit model
DC Corp was not presenting only a fixed, standardized retail-colocation product. It said customers could choose some or all vendors and services involved in:
- Mechanical and electrical engineering
- Facility construction and commissioning
- Infrastructure installation
- IT configuration
- Staffing
- Ongoing support
That structure could suit a government agency, contractor, university or research organization with unusual power, network, security or operating requirements. It also shifts more design and capital decisions into each customer engagement. A flexible build-to-suit project can fit a buyer better than a standard cage, but it may take longer to sell, require more upfront investment and depend heavily on a small number of anchor customers.
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Higher education and network connectivity
The company also targeted higher-education institutions and customers needing dark-fiber access or Internet2 connectivity. Those connections could be relevant to research traffic, distributed campuses and high-throughput collaboration. The announcement did not name a university tenant, signed contract, carrier count, latency, route diversity or physically separate entrances. Dark fiber availability alone therefore does not establish redundant connectivity.
West Virginia’s claimed advantages
DC Corp promoted Martinsburg as a lower-cost, accessible alternative to established markets. Its stated selling points included:
- Access to New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
- A location within 500 miles of half the U.S. population
- Lower perceived natural-disaster risk
- Energy costs it said averaged 40% below surrounding states
- A cost of living it said was 5.4% below the national average
- Low workforce turnover
These were company-provided sales claims in the 2013 coverage. The report supplied no methodology, comparison date, utility bills, labor-market dataset or disaster model for the percentages and rankings. They should be treated as points for a buyer to verify, not as established performance results. West Virginia’s economic-development agency now markets the state for data centers using themes such as Washington proximity, power, workforce and scalability; that is current state marketing context, not evidence that DC Corp achieved its 2013 goals (West Virginia Division of Economic Development).
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What the announcement proved—and what it did not
| Established by the available reporting | Not established |
|---|---|
| A September 20, 2013 opening announcement | A federal contract or government tenant |
| A Martinsburg facility associated with the Rockefeller Science and Technology Center | Occupancy, revenue or utilization |
| An approximately 180,000-square-foot retrofit with 11,000 square feet of office space | Megawatts, rack count, PUE, generator or UPS design |
| Federal customers as the main target and higher education as another target | FedRAMP, classified-workload approval, facility clearance or agency authorization |
| A customizable, customer-selected build-out model | Current ownership, operating status or uptime history in 2026 |
The wording “going after fed business” matters: it describes intended sales activity, not a reported award. No available source shows that an agency moved workloads into the facility.
Regional federal infrastructure was separate
Martinsburg and nearby communities already had significant federal-computing activity. A 2013 congressional hearing discussed a large federal data center in Martinsburg, and a Department of Energy report provides additional context on federal computing infrastructure in Martinsburg and nearby Kearneysville (hearing transcript; Department of Energy report). Those facilities were government-operated or government-contracted infrastructure, not proof of a relationship, contract or tenancy involving DC Corp.
A 2014 alumni publication says DC Corp was created in 2011 and describes its custom hybrid data-facility approach (2014 publication). Another publication’s description of the project as the “first data center of its kind in West Virginia” is ambiguous and should not be converted into a claim that it was the state’s first data center of any kind. Existing federal facilities make that absolute wording unsafe.
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Why the smaller-market strategy was notable
In 2013, West Virginia was not generally viewed as a major colocation hub. The project illustrated an emerging strategy: reuse an existing building, stay near a dense customer cluster, seek lower costs and sell geographic separation. That approach can work when a provider secures anchor demand and demonstrates carrier, power and compliance depth. It can struggle when a smaller market lacks immediate customers, network ecosystems or the scale required by national government contracts.
Questions a federal or enterprise buyer would need answered
- Who owns and operates the facility now?
- What commissioned and expandable IT load is available?
- How many carriers and physically diverse fiber routes serve the building?
- What utility feeds, generators, UPS systems, cooling systems and fuel autonomy exist?
- Which security controls, audits, clearances or government authorizations apply?
- What service-level commitments, incident records and continuity tests can be documented?
- Are there named tenants, contract awards or current employment records?
How to interpret the project today
The defensible historical conclusion is limited but meaningful: DC Corp launched a customizable Martinsburg facility and aimed its sales effort first at federal customers seeking proximity to Washington without locating in the capital core, with higher education as a secondary market. The sources do not establish federal wins, technical certification, occupancy, long-term viability or 2026 operating status. Any current assessment would require updated property, contract, utility and company records rather than inference from the 2013 announcement.
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