Starwood Digital Ventures is proposing a six-million-square-foot data center near Delaware City — one of the largest in the country — and the state-level review process is underway.
Known as Project Washington, the proposal includes one massive data center spread over 11 buildings on two properties east of Route 1, the north campus above Red Lion Creek and the south campus below.
Completing the south campus is Phase 1 of the project, which includes an electrical yard and six data center buildings. An exploratory plan for this phase of the project was submitted earlier this month.
New Castle County Councilman David Carter explains the project now awaits a review from the state’s Preliminary Land Use Service (PLUS) and confirmation from DNREC that it does not violate the Coastal Zone Act.
He also believes a study needs to occur on how the project complies with existing county regulations, particularly around noise levels, and wants a report from the Public Service Commission on if Delaware has the energy to accommodate the project.
The data center's energy consumption is expected to be around 1.2-gigawatts per hour, which would consume as much power as nearly double the existing housing units in Delaware.
"There are still some serious challenges, and you know, we’ll have to address them as best we can on this site, and we’ll clearly do everything we can to get the legislation through to make sure that we have much clearer criteria guidelines if we do it anywhere else in New Castle County," Carter said.
He's referring to legislation he introduced earlier this month that would require data centers to be at least 1,000 feet from residential zones and be held to specific noise and light limits in the county.
Carter's ordinance by law cannot be applied retroactively if it did pass County Council, but it could apply to Phase 2 of the project. Regardless, he says there are existing areas of code that could be applicable to Project Washington.
"It’s not as clear, but under the code, there are still newer noise restrictions and other things we have in the code, and we will see the extent that we can apply them, and I think if they’re going to do this, it would behoove them to look at what we are looking at down the road and make sure that they’re doing their due diligence to try and meet those requirements, particularly if they think they’re going to work with us to try and do anything else anywhere else in New Castle County," Carter said.
He says the legislation will officially be presented before Council in September.
Councilman Kevin Caneco, who represents the 12th district where Project Washington would be, agrees with Carter that a lot of vetting around the data center proposal still has to be done and notes an "overwhelming" negative response from his constituents.
"I’m going to remain neutral on this because I need to be fully informed, and I want to have all the information before we move forward on any votes in Council, and I want to see what the state says first," Caneco said. "But I’ve been hearing a lot of concerns, and I’ve been getting a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls from concerned residents saying 'we really need you to look at this.'"
Caneco explains the south campus portion of the project is a "by-right" project, meaning as long as it meets all of the permitting and zoning requirements, the County Council legally has to approve it, although that doesn't mean it can't vote "no."
"The southern portion of this plan that they submitted is a by-right plan, and if we did vote it down, and we could still do that — I mean, technically, it’s not like we can’t do that. It’s just the problem is that I think there’s case law that would show that they could bring a lawsuit against us, and then they may be able to go forward with it either way," Caneco said, noting he has his own qualms with the by-right process as a whole.
But the north campus, or Phase 2 of the project, is proposed to be built on land currently zoned as "suburban," meaning the developers would have to go through a rezoning process with the county's land use department — Caneco says that will be a difficult and long process in and of itself.
Delaware City residents and elected officials have also raised questions around the true benefits of the project, including House Speaker Melissa-Minor Brown who called for County Council to vote against the project.
Gov. Matt Meyer also told Delaware Public Media the project is a "non-starter" for him and that he will do "everything he can" to ensure a large energy-consumption project doesn't set up residency in the First State.
Projections around how many permanent jobs the Washington Project will bring to the area vary anywhere from 95 to 200 positions.
The project is anticipated to bring a decade's worth of hundreds of constructions jobs to the area, but Caneco says it's still not clear if those jobs will be reserved for Delawareans.
“I've also heard from local building and trades that they haven't been in contact with them, so I don't know if they're going to use out-of-state folks or in-state folks. So this is what I mean — there's so many questions that are still out there, that are floating, that we don't know the answer to.”
Caneco and Carter's concerns aside, they both agree they need to watch the vetting process play out before any formal decisions are made.
"I’ve had a little bit of mixed reaction [from constituents], but mostly, it has been anti-data center. And I tell everyone that I believe in due process, I believe in doing our due diligence, that’s why I’m writing code that gives us clear criteria," he said. "I don’t know yet — I think there are better locations than the one that has been proposed, but we need to address that going forward through zoning. I don’t shut the door on anyone from a land use perspective, but I will write codes and make it as best I can," Carter said.
Caneco also agrees that Carter's legislation, of which he is a co-sponsor, is an important step to ensure there are better regulations around these types of centers if more try and enter the First State in the future.
"This is very important legislation because these data centers aren’t going away anytime soon, and they could find— there’s plenty of land still in southern New Castle County, for example, that they may want to look at or something like that. So we’ve got to definitely tighten it up with our code and what we can allow, and I think that does it," Caneco said. "It’s a good first step, and it’s actually a very aggressive step. But we’ve been hearing a lot of support for it so far."
In a letter to the county, Starwood wrote it anticipates construction of the first phase to begin in the summer of 2026, and the data center would begin operating in early 2028.
