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Construction on the PW Digital Gateway is prohibited until a citizen-led legal challenge of the massive Prince William data center project concludes, the Virginia Court of Appeals ordered this week.
A Nov. 17 order from the court partially granted a motion for reconsideration of an earlier order allowing construction on PW Digital Gateway to proceed, effectively reversing the authorization and prohibiting construction pending the conclusion of the appeal.
The motion for reconsideration, initiated by the Oak Valley Homeowners Association and fellow plaintiffs, aimed to revisit the Court of Appeals’ Oct. 28 stay of Prince William Circuit Court Judge Kimberly A. Irving’s August ruling declaring the data center project “void ab initio.”
Both Compass Datacenters and QTS, the two principal developers behind PW Digital Gateway, appealed Irving’s ruling alongside the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.
According to the Court of Appeals’ Nov. 17 order, “Upon due consideration, the Court grants the motion for reconsideration in part and denies it in part.”
The order concluded by stating, “The trial court’s judgment is not stayed to the extent it prohibits appellants from engaging in land-disturbance or actual construction of the facilities authorized by the rezoning ordinances at issue here. Enforcement of the judgment is otherwise stayed pending further order of this Court.”
In the order, the Court of Appeals also declared the case has now been “expedited for oral argument” for the week of Feb. 23, 2026.
Mark Looney, an attorney representing Compass Datacenters, declined to comment, citing the project’s design phase.
In an emailed statement to InsideNoVa, Mac Haddow, president of the Oak Valley Homeowners Association, said the plaintiffs were pleased with the Nov. 17 order.
“The Oak Valley community, and the residents directly impacted by the proposed PW Digital Gateway,” Haddow said in the statement, “welcome the decision by the Virginia Court of Appeals to officially block the data center developers from engaging in any land disturbance or actual construction of the facilities pending the final judicial decision.”
The statement continued, “This decision brings absolute clarity to the significant question on the intent of the developers and whether they will start construction as a pressure tactic on the BOCS if they lose the appeal. The current posturing of the attorneys representing Prince William County and the data center developers’ attorneys have essentially given the defendants ‘two bites at the apple’ and the attempt to confuse the Appeals Court on the land disturbance and actual construction issue is a perfect example of that.”
At full buildout, the Digital Gateway near Gainesville would be the largest data center corridor in the world, with over 22 million square feet of data centers spread out across over 2,100 acres in western Prince William. The project would include 37 data centers, roughly the size of 144 Walmart supercenters.
The previous Board of County Supervisors approved the project in December 2023, but Irving’s ruling paused the development. Irving found the county did not properly advertise the public hearing before which the deciding vote would take place.
