Investment firm eyes First State’s first major campus
Plans have been filed for a large gigawatt-scale data center campus in Delaware.
As reported by BizJournal, Starwood Digital Ventures has filed two applications with New Castle County to develop a new campus that would total 1.2GW across 6 million sq ft (557,418 sqm).
Project Washington would see 11 buildings developed on approximately 580 acres of vacant land between the Dupont Highway, Governor Lea Road, and River Road in New Castle, a city located on the Delaware River, approximately seven miles south of Wilmington and 35 miles southwest of Philadelphia.
Starwood Digital Ventures, a subsidiary of Starwood Capital Group, is proposing the project along with landowner New Castle Campus Development LLC, an entity tied to PBF Energy.
The first phase would include six 500,000-square-foot (46,452 sqm), two-story buildings for a total of about 3 million square feet; the second phase would see two 500,000-square-foot, two-story buildings and three 700,000-square-foot (65,032 sqm), two-story buildings developed, totaling around 3.1 million square feet.
Power would come from Delmarva Power & Light Company’s Red Lion electrical substation.
Construction could start as soon as Q3 2026, and initial operations are targeted to begin in Q2 2028.
It’s unclear if a tenant for any of the buildings has been secured. Starwood declined to comment to the publication.
"Data centers are one of the hottest project trends across the US right now," Susan Colby, a spokesperson for the Delaware Prosperity Partnership, the state's economic development arm, told BJ. "Given Delaware’s tax structure and its other favorable features, our state would be a highly competitive location for almost any company looking to establish a data center."
Delaware has a minimal data center market. DataCenterMap lists just five facilities in the First State, four of which are in Wilmington and none close to the scale Starwood is proposing. US colocation firm DāSTOR operates in the area.
Private investment firm Starwood is developing a number of data centers in the US and owns a significant stake in European developer Echelon. Last year, it launched a dedicated data center unit, and significant portions of its newest fund will reportedly go to data centers.
In one of the documents to New Castle County, Starwood Digital Ventures said it currently has over $17 billion of digital infrastructure commitments and a pipeline of more than 3.5GW of data center developments globally.
PBF Energy Inc. is a petroleum refining company that produces and sells transportation fuels, heating oils, and other petroleum products. It operates a refinery just south of Starwood’s proposed campus.
In a recent presentation, PBF said it was “considering” investments in sustainable electricity and data centers, as well as potential development of 10 million sq ft (929,030 sqm) of distribution warehouses, commercial, and office space.
