Google has bought more than 300 acres in a Botetourt County industrial park to potentially build a data center campus there, officials announced Tuesday.
The tech giant paid just over $14 million for the land and will put another $4 million toward local projects benefiting the county’s fire service, law enforcement, schools and other departments, Botetourt County Administrator Gary Larrowe said.
“This is a win for Botetourt and it’s a win for all of us,” Larrowe said as he announced the project Tuesday evening during a board of supervisors meeting.
Data centers are large buildings full of computer equipment that power a variety of online services such as Google’s Gmail email service, search engine and artificial intelligence products. Google has 29 data center locations across 11 countries.
Many details of the Botetourt County project have yet to be determined, including a timeline for the project and how large the data center would be.
The land sale closed June 20, and county supervisors approved a related performance agreement with Google on Tuesday.
“We are always looking for communities that have the innovative and collaborative leadership necessary to bring complex projects like data center campuses to life, and we are optimistic about the partnership we’ve built so far with Botetourt and the entire Roanoke region,” Amber Tillman, Google’s head of data center public affairs for North America, said in a news release.
If the Mountain View, California-based company’s plans come to fruition, it would be the seventh business project in the approximately 750-acre Botetourt Center at Greenfield, where about 2,200 people already work.
With Google’s purchase, Larrowe said, “Greenfield basically has been sold.
“This place is full,” he said.
Larrowe said the $18 million from the land sale and Google’s additional contributions will go toward a slew of projects, including:
- $4.9 million for new fire trucks and ambulances,
- $3.6 million toward a community events center,
- $3.5 million to renovate the Buchanan library branch,
- $2.6 million toward the county sheriff’s office purchase of body cameras and less-lethal weapons, and
- $2 million for the county public school system to use as it chooses.
Money will also go toward new tennis courts, pickleball courts and soccer field lighting at the Botetourt Sports Complex; an E-911 dispatch center; and a new home for the Botetourt County Historical Museum.
Larrowe said during his announcement that the deal has been in the works since January 2024, when county and state officials began hosting site visits.
County officials worked with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the Roanoke Regional Partnership, a regional economic development organization.
In the past year and a half, there have been “hundreds” of phone calls and Google has “just about worn out the airport,” Larrowe said.
The industrial park’s zoning was changed to allow data centers in November. 
Google will pay property taxes at a rate of 70 cents per $100 of assessed value, which means a hypothetical $100 million in property value would yield $7 million in annual tax revenue, according to a news release.
Virginia’s status as a fast-growing market for data centers is contributing to a rapid rise in electricity consumption. A state report last year said the commonwealth’s power usage could triple by 2040 if data center growth continues unconstrained.
In December, Google announced it would buy the entire electric output of the planned 79.3-megawatt Rocky Forge Wind power facility in Botetourt County to support its data centers.
A news release Tuesday said that Google and Appalachian Power are still assessing the electrical infrastructure needed for a data center but that Google would pay for any necessary upgrades.
Data centers can consume large amounts of water, chiefly for cooling their computer equipment. The Western Virginia Water Authority has the capacity to serve Google, and Google would pay for all water usage and necessary improvements so ratepayers won’t see bill increases, the news release stated.
The data center’s noise levels would be “equal to or better than industry standard for typical light industrial zoning” and “noise models will be run during design stages of the project to ensure that there will be no adverse impact to neighbors,” the news release said.
Botetourt County Supervisor Walter Michael said in a news release that the data center would be built within the existing business park, next to current industrial users.
“Residents haven’t been inconvenienced by what’s already happening in Greenfield, and that’s not going to change with this data center campus,” he said.
Tuesday’s news came three months after another Botetourt County economic development announcement related to data centers.
In March, the Swedish firm Munters Corp., which makes climate control systems for data centers and other industries, announced it would invest $30 million and add 270 jobs at its manufacturing site in the Greenfield park.
The company makes HVAC equipment for data centers and recently acquired a line of chillers, which remove heat from data center server rooms.
