Bull Church Data Center, Caroline County, Virginia

The Bull Church Data Center, a proposal to rezone land on Bull Church Road near Ladysmith in Caroline County, Virginia, for several data center buildings, is still in the county's technical review with no public hearing set. The applicant, NRD Retail, LLC, wants the land, owned by Mid Atlantic State Fund, LLC, rezoned from Rural Preservation to M-1 Industrial for a data center and supporting uses.

The site, about 87.5 acres, lies east of the I-95 interchange at Ladysmith, next to the southern boundary of the old Virginia Bazaar. The plan is for data center buildings of up to 300,000 square feet each, 792,000 square feet in all. The development plan filed with the county shows a 10-acre substation on the site. NRD Retail's attorney, Ann Neil Cosby, invited neighbors to a community meeting at Lotus Academy in Ruther Glen in August 2024. No megawatt figure, tenant or cost has been made public.

The land is zoned for rural preservation, so the project needs the Board of Supervisors to approve a rezoning after a Planning Commission hearing.

The largest project at the Ladysmith interchange is CleanArc Data Centers' campus on 650 acres at the former Virginia Bazaar flea market, just east of I-95 at Exit 110. In August 2025 the Board of Supervisors approved a performance agreement for three 490,000-square-foot buildings there, with Bowling Green District Supervisor Jeff Sili the lone vote against, and the county will rebate part of the new taxes as annual grants. CleanArc needed no rezoning, because data centers were allowed by right on industrial land when it applied; the county changed that on December 10, 2024, and now requires a special exception permit for data centers on industrial parcels. On September 22, 2026, supervisors voted 4-2 to rezone 916 acres for Luck Stone's Carmel Technology and Enterprise Center, an industrial park with no named end user, over traffic concerns from Supervisors Jeff Black and Jeff Sili. Across the Fredericksburg region, residents are organizing: Cindy Staats of Safeguard Spotsy told a League of Women Voters forum that Spotsylvania has approved six data center developments with 10 more in the pipeline "all within a 15-mile radius," and said "We need to pause."

Bull Church is one of several data center requests on the county's list: ADP Ladysmith Data Hub wants to rezone 140 acres on Green Road west of I-95, and Thornberry, LLC wants to rezone 657 acres on Carneal Lane for a data center campus, and neither has a hearing date.

No hearing date had been set as of September 2026. When one is, the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing and make a recommendation, and the Board of Supervisors will vote. Caroline County's Board of Supervisors decides rezonings and special exceptions: Chair Clay Forehand, Nancy Long, Floyd Thomas, Reginald Underwood, Jeff Black and Jeff Sili. The site is in the Mattaponi District, represented by Supervisor Floyd Thomas.