Something Big is Going Up (or down) in Rural Mecklenberg County, Va.

By Michael C. Randle

Try as you will, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine won't discuss with anyone about what is undoubtedly one of Virginia's largest economic development projects in years. In fact, dozens of elected and economic development officials in Virginia can't talk about the deal that is going up (or down, if you will) in scenic and rural Clarksville, Va. You see, it's a secret. The project is so secret that one official who made sure we did not identify him told us that he has never seen a project with more non-disclosure documentation.   

We can't find much on the project either, other than a few articles written earlier this year. We assume those were published prior to those same writers being squeezed by someone to tone it down. Needless to say, we weren't invited to the grand opening or ribbon cutting because there wasn't one.

But locals in and around Clarksville, located in the Southside region of Virginia in the county of Mecklenberg, observe the activity surrounding the project every day and night as helicopters have been heard descending on the site in the dark of night. The huge project, from what we have gathered, is now operational as construction continues at a rapid pace.

The project is being built by Plano-Tex.-based Electronic Data Services (EDS) and is the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) second new, massive data center. The first, built at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, has been activated and the one going up in Clarksville represents an investment of $800 million over several years. The Clarksville data center is a scalable center to provide IT services for DHS and act as a backup data center to the one completed in Mississippi.

The two data centers are designed to bring order to Homeland Security's information technology fundamentals and to upgrade its cybersecurity functions. The fact that both centers, critical to the nation's homeland defense, are being built in the rural South does not go unnoticed by us.

Both centers are home to what are likely about 400 to 500 cybersecurity brainiacs. Much of the work force at the Clarksville data center is being hired locally, as is the one in Mississippi.

The Clarksville DHS center is being built at the expense of one of the South's most technology-savvy markets: Raleigh-Durham, N.C. Computer Sciences, which lost on the bid to EDS for the Mecklenberg County data center, planned to locate the facility on the site of a former Environmental Protection Agency building in Research Triangle Park.

We should point out that a company as technologically advanced as EDS and a federal agency as "Secret Squirrel" as the Department of Homeland Security didn't just stumble upon Mecklenberg County, Va. for an $800 million data center as shrouded as this one is. While no one is talking about it, we would assume that several key factors played a role in the deal. Those would probably include incredibly reliable electric power, most likely from two or three utility providers so that the ultimate level of power redundancy is achieved; an available work force that can handle the kind of work that is needed for such a project; and a low risk of natural disaster. Apparently, Mecklenberg County fit the federal bill for the deal.