Mital Gandhi hears the hum every day. From his front porch in Ashburn, Virginia, four data centers sit less than 2,000 feet away. The constant drone drowns out backyard barbecues. It fills the air during quiet evenings by the pool. Gandhi, 47, once sought suburban calm after years in Washington, D.C. Now his neighborhood stands at the center of a transformation few anticipated.
The Regency community, with its 143 homes, sits deep inside Data Center Alley. Loudoun County hosts roughly 200 such facilities. They form the densest cluster on the planet. Powering artificial intelligence demands ever more servers, ever more electricity. Local residents pay the price in noise, lost trees, and strained infrastructure. Yet some see opportunity. Gandhi, a former HOA president and real estate developer, crafted a bold plan. Sell every home and acre to a data center operator. Pocket more than $500 million. Walk away richer.
But unanimity proves elusive. One hundred thirty-eight households initially signaled support at the right price. Details complicated matters. Timelines stretched. Families weighed schools against sudden windfalls. The proposal, first floated in 2024, remains in flux. Current HOA President Kevin McCaughey stated in March 2026 there is currently no offer to purchase the Regency homes for data center development. Any reports or rumors to the contrary are categorically inaccurate. (NBC Washington)
The Numbers That Tempt and Divide
Gandhi set the target at $4.4 million per acre. That figure runs about four times local residential values. Across 130 acres the total approaches $576 million. Comparable deals informed his math. In neighboring Prince William County, Microsoft paid $465.5 million for 124 acres of vacant land, roughly $3.75 million per acre. Gandhi aimed higher yet grounded the ask in market reality. “I made sure it was a justified number,” he told Business Insider. “It wasn’t out of the air.” (Business Insider)
Longtime resident Rick Myers, 62, liked the math immediately. His home might fetch $1.3 million today. The proposed payout would let him and his wife retire elsewhere. He estimates 60 percent of neighbors share his view. Walt Purnell, 80, another former HOA president, initially called the idea crazy. Construction noise, generator tests at night, and unrelenting hum had worn everyone down. After polling, support looked overwhelming. Then specifics surfaced. Zoning changes. New power lines. A seven-year wait. Enthusiasm cooled. “We’re sort of stalemated,” Purnell said.
Parents worry about school years cut short. Others note home values keep rising without action. One finance professional who lives there for a decade calculated the risk. Selling tomorrow at triple the price sounds attractive. Waiting years for uncertain approval changes the equation. Compensation must match that delay. So far, agreement on terms beyond money has not materialized. “The only term that everyone can agree to is money,” Gandhi observed.
And the buyer? Identities stay confidential under nondisclosure agreements. Reports point to interest from major hyperscalers. One major U.S. cloud provider stands out in local speculation. The HOA formed an LLC to handle negotiations and entitlements. That step signals seriousness even as public statements deny an active offer. Data Center Dynamics first broke details in March 2026, describing a potential 432-megawatt campus with up to six buildings. Power might not flow until the 2030s. (Data Center Dynamics, referenced in Northern Virginia Magazine)
Recent transactions reinforce the economics. In 2025 Chuck Kuhn sold 97 parcels in nearby Leesburg for $615 million to a global data center investor. The land already carried approvals for five new facilities. (Washington Business Journal) TA Realty announced in February 2026 the sale of two completed hyperscale buildings in Leesburg totaling 745,000 square feet and 165 megawatts. The deal formed part of a larger planned 450-megawatt campus. (TA Realty announcement)
These figures arrive against a backdrop of explosive demand. Northern Virginia absorbed 1,102 megawatts of data center space in 2025, leading all primary markets. Vacancy rates hit record lows of 1.4 percent. Hyperscalers drive the majority. CBRE’s North America Data Center Trends H2 2025 report captured the surge. (CBRE)
Yet constraints mount. Dominion Energy once limited new connections. Loudoun County removed by-right zoning for data centers in 2024, forcing case-by-case approvals. Power demand in the county jumped 233 percent from 2020 to 2025. Projections show needs could reach 11.6 to 14.2 gigawatts by 2028 or 2030. A Kimley-Horn study and county analyses paint the same picture. Solar cannot close the gap. One analysis noted that meeting data center demand through solar alone would require panels covering more land than the entire county possesses. (Northern Virginia Technology Council 2026 Virginia Data Center Report)
Public sentiment hardened. A Gallup survey released in 2026 found 71 percent of Americans do not want a data center near their homes. Opposition exceeds even resistance to nearby nuclear plants. Residents cite noise, water consumption, grid strain, and health questions. In Ashburn the visual impact grows too. Newer facilities rise four, five, even six stories. Winter reveals them through leafless trees. Myers watched the woods disappear over decades. “You really didn’t see anything but greenery everywhere,” he recalled of the 1990s.
Gandhi brings personal drive to the effort. Kidney failure before age 30 put him on dialysis. The experience sharpened his sense of purpose. He later launched a dialysis center with his doctor. Real estate became his focus. Merit Development, the firm he leads as managing partner, taught him to deliver on promises. “When I tell you I’m going to do something, you have nothing else to worry about.” His direct style leaves little room for ambiguity. “Either you’re going to love me, or you’re not, and that’s OK.”
Purnell remembers Gandhi’s first call. The idea sounded far-fetched. Yet the former HOA president eventually backed the concept. Complaints had piled up for years. Emergency generators fired at odd hours. Air conditioners lacked proper baffling. Traffic clogged streets during construction. The data center boom brought jobs and tax revenue to Loudoun. It also altered daily life in ways early planners never modeled.
Similar stories play out across Northern Virginia. Amazon Data Services bought George Washington University’s 120-acre Ashburn campus in early 2026 for $427 million. County officials expressed surprise, expecting mixed-use development instead. Loudoun vowed to fight rezoning, citing overloaded infrastructure. The episode underscored tensions between economic gains and livability. (The Washington Post)
Broader market signals point to continued pressure. Hyperscale operators seek scale. AI training and inference workloads consume massive power. Northern Virginia still claims roughly 25 percent of U.S. hyperscale capacity and handles 70 percent of global internet traffic at peak. Yet saturation pushes development outward. Prince William County, southern Virginia, even markets beyond the state draw interest. CBRE and other analysts note vacancy compression and absorption records that show no immediate slowdown. (CBRE)
For Regency families the choice feels personal. Cash out at a premium and relocate. Stay and watch the neighborhood evolve into another server farm. Or hold out for better terms. Gandhi frames his proposal as the best available scenario. “To give 143 families an opportunity, potentially a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, is probably one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.” He sees himself as a dealmaker delivering options where resistance seems futile.
Whether the transaction closes remains uncertain. Entitlements take time. Power delivery schedules stretch into the next decade. Current HOA leadership distances itself from active talks. Still, the conversation itself reveals shifting realities. Residential land in Data Center Alley carries speculative value few other suburbs match. Developers pay premiums precisely because conversion meets insatiable digital demand.
Recent reporting shows the pattern accelerating. A Brookfield-backed data center arm withdrew from an 825-acre project nearby, citing local opposition. Yet smaller assemblages like Regency attract attention for their location inside the established fiber and power network. LinkedIn commentary and local real estate posts in spring 2026 described the potential 130-acre site as capable of supporting six buildings and hundreds of megawatts. The HOA’s LLC continues preparatory work. (LinkedIn post by Dan Cordwell)
Gandhi’s health scare decades ago taught him to act decisively. He built businesses. He bought properties. Now he tries to align 143 separate visions around one exit. The effort exposes larger questions. How much disruption will communities tolerate? At what price does a neighborhood sell its future? Northern Virginia already hosts more data centers than the next six U.S. markets combined. Growth shows few signs of easing.
So the hum continues. Servers rack up. Power lines multiply. And one Ashburn street debates whether to join the very industry that displaced its quiet suburban dream. The answer may not arrive soon. But the pressure only builds.