Thornberry Data Center Campus, Ruther Glen, Virginia

Thornberry, LLC has asked Caroline County, Virginia, to rezone 657 acres of its 1,001.5-acre parcel at 23202 Carneal Lane in Ruther Glen from Rural Preservation to the county's Planned Innovation, Research and Technology district for the Thornberry Data Center Campus. Its development plan, dated May 2025, shows up to 16 potential data centers totaling about 3.3 million square feet, built over several years with multiple substations. The county lists the case, RZ-03-2025, as complete and under review, with no public hearing date set, and the decision rests with the Caroline County Board of Supervisors.

The land, a farm with a house, fields and timber, lies east of Coleman's Mill Road and north of Dry Bridge Road at the end of the public part of Carneal Lane, with the CSX railroad as its northern edge; the part north of the railroad would stay rural. Polecat Creek and Saddle Swamp, tributaries of the Mattaponi River, run through the property, and the applicant says wetlands and resource protection areas will be left as buffers. The applicant commits to noise at the property line of no more than 60 decibels by day and 55 at night.

It cites a Mangum Economics study projecting 360 jobs and county revenue of about $24.4 million in the first year of operations, rising to $81.8 million in year three and settling at $65 million. The site falls within the Carmel Church Growth Area, which the Board of Supervisors expanded in September 2024 to take in properties along Dry Bridge Road and Carneal Lane for technology uses. Reviewing a separate data center next door in December 2025, county planners warned that construction traffic could be forced onto Dry Bridge Road, "a narrow secondary road with many tight curves," because the railroad crossing limits access from the north on Coleman's Mill Road.

Thornberry is one of several data center proposals clustered around Carmel Church. Immediately west, off W.C. Spratt Drive, an applicant sought a special exception in late 2025 for four two-story data center buildings totaling 1.5 million square feet on 95 acres, and Thornberry's own filing notes a pending application for another campus, the Caroline Center for Innovation, just to the south along Dry Bridge Road.

Near the Ladysmith interchange, CleanArc Data Centers is developing a 650-acre campus at the former Virginia Bazaar under a performance agreement the supervisors voted for in August 2025, anticipating $8.8 billion of investment at full buildout. On September 22, 2026, the supervisors voted 4-2 to rezone 916 acres for Luck Stone's Carmel Technology and Enterprise Center industrial park, over traffic concerns on U.S. Route 1. The Thornberry rezoning still needs a public hearing before the Board of Supervisors can vote; none has been set.