Digital Realty paid a reported $2.14 million per acre for 13 acres in Ashburn, Virginia, in May 2019. Data Center Knowledge described the purchase from Airbus Americas as a Loudoun County land-price record at the time. The deal illustrates why data-center developers paid a premium for scarce sites near Ashburn’s power, fiber and interconnection infrastructure—but it does not establish today’s land values or what ultimately happened to the property.
What Digital Realty bought
According to Bill Stoller’s June 4, 2019, report for Data Center Knowledge, Digital Realty acquired a 13-acre former Airbus Americas property in May 2019. The site reportedly included a 124,000-square-foot Satair logistics facility that was expected to be demolished for data-center development.
At the reported price of $2.14 million per acre, the transaction implied a total purchase price of approximately $27.82 million. The article characterized that per-acre figure as a Loudoun County record at the time. That is a description of the 2019 transaction, not a verified current valuation.
Why Ashburn land commanded a premium
A dense interconnection ecosystem
The article links Ashburn’s appeal to its concentration of data centers and network facilities. It highlights the nearby Equinix campus and the former MAE-East network access point, a carrier-neutral peering location where long-haul fiber backbones connected. For operators, proximity to these networks can reduce the difficulty of connecting customers, cloud platforms and carriers.
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Fiber and power alongside available land
Stoller describes Ashburn’s growth as the result of developable land combined with relatively affordable power, extensive fiber and a business-friendly environment. Parcels near Waxpool Road and Loudoun County Parkway were valuable because they put new campuses close to infrastructure that would be expensive or slow to reproduce elsewhere.
Scarcity, not just acreage
The limiting asset was a site that was both large enough for a campus and readily developable. Tom Sandlin of Avison Young told the publication that “locating a readily developable site for a data center campus in Ashburn was akin to finding a needle in a haystack.” In this context, a smaller parcel with strong utility and fiber access could command a higher per-acre price than a much larger tract farther from the established cluster.
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How the deal compared with other reported purchases
| Transaction reported in 2019 | Size | Reported price per acre | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Realty, Airbus Americas property | 13 acres | $2.14 million | Described by Data Center Knowledge as a Loudoun County record at the time |
| Cologix, former Christian Fellowship church site near Equinix | 22.4 acres | $1.68 million | The article said Cologix reportedly intended a 100 MW campus |
| Digital Realty, Western Lands | 434 acres | $558,000 | Reported October 2018 purchase; larger acreage at a lower per-acre figure |
These are historical figures relayed by the 2019 article, not current comparable-sales data. The contrast suggests why per-acre prices cannot be read without considering location, infrastructure, entitlement risk and parcel scale.
Evidence of a rapidly expanding land market
The article relayed Avison Young figures showing that about 1,700 acres were acquired for data-center use from 2011 through August 2017, followed by roughly 2,000 acres in the subsequent year. Those numbers were presented as evidence of accelerating demand during that period. They should not be used as a current inventory or absorption estimate.
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Stoller argued that Digital Realty’s purchase could reset local land pricing and strengthen the company’s position. That was the article’s contemporary analysis; the source does not independently verify a later price reset, development outcome or competitive effect.
Where developers looked as Loudoun County tightened
Manassas and Prince William County
The article presents Manassas in Prince William County as an alternative when developable Loudoun County land became harder to find and more expensive. Sandlin pointed to Manassas’s proximity to Ashburn and its fiber connectivity. He also said that large land-banking opportunities had occurred and that only a few sites remained.
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Sandlin’s 2019 forecast said that 200 to 300 acres might become available in Prince William County depending on difficult rezoning efforts, while the county was shrinking its Data Center Overlay District. That statement is an article-era forecast, not evidence of current zoning or current acreage.
Planned network paths described in the article
The report discussed a planned fiber build connecting the Equinix Culpeper network access point with Manassas and Ashburn. It also described a route from Ashburn toward subsea cables at Virginia Beach through the QTS Richmond network access point. These were plans and descriptions current to the 2019 article; their inclusion here does not confirm present-day construction or capacity.
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How to evaluate a data-center site
The Ashburn transaction shows why investors should compare more than a headline land price. The article’s facts support five practical axes:
- Cluster and interconnection proximity: distance to established campuses, carrier hotels and network access points.
- Fiber availability: existing routes, route diversity and the status of planned builds.
- Developable acreage: usable land after setbacks, environmental limits, easements and entitlement constraints.
- Power readiness: available capacity, delivery timing and the cost of extending infrastructure.
- Entitlement and market risk: zoning, overlay-district rules, rezoning prospects and the price paid for comparable sites.
A large tract may have a lower per-acre price yet require more capital and time before construction. Conversely, a smaller parcel beside existing infrastructure may support a higher price because it can shorten the path to an operating campus.
What this historical deal does—and does not—tell you
- It documents a reported May 2019 purchase of 13 Ashburn acres by Digital Realty at $2.14 million per acre.
- It shows how proximity to fiber, power and established data-center clusters influenced land economics in Loudoun County.
- It provides historical comparisons with Cologix’s 22.4-acre purchase and Digital Realty’s 434-acre Western Lands purchase.
- It does not provide current Loudoun County land prices, confirmation of the Airbus parcel’s later development, or a present ranking of Virginia data-center markets.
For personal investors, corporate real-estate analysts and local stakeholders, the central lesson is that infrastructure scarcity can create a premium for strategically located land. The premium is specific to the site, the time and the development assumptions behind the transaction—not a guarantee that every nearby parcel will appreciate similarly.
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