Tract proposes first Goochland data center under new overlay rules
Tract has filed the first Goochland data center proposal under new overlay rules, targeting nearly 900 acres west of West Creek and forcing a public permit review.
A Denver developer has put nearly 900 acres west of West Creek on the path to Goochland County’s first data center review under the new Technology Overlay District. Tract’s initial conditional-use permit for Tuckahoe Technology Park would turn 13 parcels into a multi-phase campus in TOD West, a sensitive stretch of eastern Goochland bordered by Hockett Road, Patterson Avenue, Route 288 and the Mosaic at West Creek neighborhood.
The filing lands in a part of the county where Goochland has already drawn a hard regulatory line. County leaders approved the Technology Overlay District and a companion Technology Zone on Nov. 6, 2025, in a 4-1 vote after about six months of hearings and community outreach. The rules were written to funnel high-tech development into the designated growth area while adding protections for nearby homes through tighter standards on noise, buffers, setbacks, height, lighting, fencing, construction hours and public water and sewer requirements.
County records say there are no by-right data centers in the more than 900 acres near Mosaic and Richmond Country Club along Hockett Road. Any project there must go through a conditional-use permit, which means County Board of Supervisors approval and a deeper public review than a by-right use would require.
Tract says the campus would follow the overlay standards, but the proposal still has to move through Goochland’s permit process and public hearings before it can advance. Conceptual plans show seven development areas and as many as 12 data center buildings. The company describes its business as creating master-planned data center parks and says the project is meant to deliver long-term tax revenue, high-wage jobs and infrastructure investment while limiting sound, traffic, environmental and visual impacts on nearby homes and recreational uses.
The proposal also reopens the debate that surrounded the overlay itself. During last year’s public-hearing process, more than 80 speakers weighed in as residents from Mosaic at West Creek, Readers Branch and other nearby neighborhoods warned about rural character, environmental effects, health, property values, noise and quality-of-life impacts. County leaders, meanwhile, framed the new district as a way to keep growth in eastern Goochland, where staff and the Economic Development Authority said essential infrastructure already exists.
For nearby residents and commuters, the most immediate questions are not abstract. The permit process will determine whether Tract’s plans can clear the Board of Supervisors, and the next round of hearings is where traffic, power demand, water demand, construction hours and noise controls will be tested against the county’s new rules. In Goochland, Tuckahoe Technology Park is shaping up as the first real test of how far the overlay will go in practice.
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