Morrisey announces $4 billion data center coming to Berkeley County
By Stephen Baldwin, RealWV
CHARLESTON, WV – Gov. Patrick Morrisey on Thursday announced that Penzance Management will build a data center in Berkeley County.
“West Virginia is on the move,” Morrisey announced. “We are rapidly becoming the best place for a business to locate in our region.”
The project carries a $4 billion price tag on a property covering 548 acres. It’s estimated to create 1,000 construction jobs and 125 permanent, full-time jobs once it’s finished.
Penzance and Morrisey declined several times to say who would operate the data center. Penzance was founded almost 30 years ago by Victor Tolkan, and his company is also currently constructing data centers for Amazon in nearby northern Virginia.
Morrisey said no state funding will go into the project. “Infrastructure costs will be paid by the company, not the citizens of West Virginia.”
Tolkan said of the current climate around data center construction, “Demand far outstrips supply. Supply is getting harder to provide. What we see here in West Virginia is everybody working together as one. That’s remarkable. We don’t see that a lot. You’ve created an extraordinarily pro-business climate.”
Eddie Gochenhour, President of the Berkeley County Commission made the trip to Charleston for the announcement and thanked Morrisey and Penzance. “This is really a fantastic opportunity that we’ve never had before. There are some unanswered questions, but I feel very confident after meeting with your team that you’re gonna be a great partner with us.”
‘Tens of millions of dollars’ but no local control
One reason local officials are excited about data centers, according to Chris Morris with the WV Division of Economic Development, is the economic impact they will have. “50% of the increment (tax benefit) goes to the state for personal income tax reduction, 30% goes to the county (where the project is located), and 10% goes to a fund for all counties. 30% can be a humongous revenue opportunity for these counties. It could be tens of millions of dollars every year.”
Morrisey commented that hopes data center providers will work with local communities. “You can demonstrate how much you care about the community by meeting with them,” he said. “By paying attention to setback, to trees, to water, to noise. A lot of it is meeting with the communities so they’re not scared of this.”
However, local communities do not have a direct say in data center projects as a result of HB2014, passed last year. It preempts local zoning controls in favor of state development. But it does, as explained above, direct tax revenue to all counties in the state from data center projects.
Water & power usage?
One unique part of the Berkeley County project with Penzance is that it will use reclaimed or recycled water rather than drawing on ground water or the local rivers. Other data centers already employ this technology, recycling used water in on-site cooling towers or chillers and thereby reducing usage of fresh water.
Independent sources such as the American Society of Civil Engineers say that water usage is uneven from center to center and overall impact is yet to be fully understood.
Data centers require large amounts of electricity to operate, and Bloomberg reported in the fall of 2025 that areas near data centers saw electric rates rise by more than 250% recently.
In his State of the Union address earlier this week, President Donald Trump declared that tech companies would be responsible for paying for their own electricity without local customers paying the price. Experts say that pledge will be difficult to enforce, as Trump shared no details about how it would work.
Both Morrisey and Penzance hinted that this was the first of additional data center annoucenments to come. Stay tuned to RealWV for continued reporting.
