A Northern Virginia neighborhood surrounded by data centers may soon disappear beneath another massive technology complex, with homeowners reportedly being offered around $4 million each if every family agrees to sell.
WUSA9 chief investigative reporter Eric Flack visited the Regency subdivision in Ashburn, where 143 homeowners are considering a collective sale to a company seeking to demolish the community and redevelop the land for data center use.
The possible payout is enormous, but the decision is far more complicated than comparing the offer with the current value of a house. Residents would be giving up homes, neighbors, schools, routines, and a community many of them spent years building.
A Backyard Built for Family Life
Mital Gandhi moved into the Regency in 2013 and turned his backyard into a private retreat for his family.
He added a basketball court, deck, fire pit, and swimming pool, creating a place for games, cookouts, and time with his children. Thirteen years later, that same backyard sits within sight and sound of the buildings that have transformed Ashburn into the center of America’s data center industry.
“We designed the backyard to have fun in,” Gandhi told Flack.
The setting still works as intended, but the surrounding environment has changed. Data centers now stand across the street and along multiple sides of the neighborhood.
Gandhi said residents can sometimes hear a steady mechanical hum from the facilities while sitting near the pool.
“People think it’s the bass,” he said. “It’s not.”
When he bought the house, he did not expect the subdivision to become enclosed by large, windowless buildings filled with servers, cooling systems, and electrical equipment.
“Here we are 13 years later, and we are the epicenter of the internet,” Gandhi said.
That description is not simply a slogan. In the Regency, the expansion is visible from people’s yards, windows, and neighborhood streets.
All 143 Homes Would Be Sold Together
Gandhi, a real estate developer and former president of the homeowners association, has helped negotiate a proposed sale covering all 143 houses in the subdivision.
Under the arrangement described by Flack, one company would purchase the entire neighborhood, clear the properties, and seek permission to build a large data center development on the land.
Gandhi said the offer is covered by a nondisclosure agreement, preventing him from discussing its full terms. He did not, however, reject reports that each household could receive approximately $4 million.
“That’d be pretty good, wouldn’t it?” Gandhi said when Flack mentioned the figure.
The number would represent a life-changing amount of money for most families, likely far exceeding the ordinary residential value of many homes in the neighborhood.
Yet the agreement contains one major condition: every homeowner must agree to participate.
All 143 properties are needed for the planned development, meaning a single holdout could prevent the deal from moving forward in its current form. Gandhi said he was continuing discussions with residents who had not yet agreed.
“Whether they take it or not is up to them,” he said.
Collective sales can create unusual pressure because one homeowner’s private decision affects everyone else. A person who simply wants to remain at home may be viewed by neighbors as blocking their chance at a large payout, even though that resident has every right to decline.
Why Some Neighbors May Refuse
During the WUSA9 report, anchor Leslie Foster asked why anyone would hesitate if the reported offer was truly around $4 million.
Flack explained that the holdouts may have several different concerns.
Some could be waiting for more money, while others may prefer a different kind of development or want the transaction to happen on another timeline. For longtime residents, the biggest issue may be that selling requires them to leave a home and community they never planned to abandon.
“If they sell their home of 10, 20 years, they’ve got to go somewhere else,” Flack said.
Even with millions of dollars available, families would still need to find another property, move children to different schools, replace familiar neighbors, and build new routines elsewhere.
Older residents may be especially reluctant to start over. Others could have customized their homes, raised families there, or expected to remain through retirement.
Money can replace a building, but it cannot perfectly recreate the life connected to it. That is why a deal that appears obvious from the outside may feel deeply personal from inside the neighborhood.
Gandhi acknowledged that he did not know what would happen to people who refused to sell if the larger plan continued changing around them.
“That’s a good question,” he said. “I don’t know.”
From Fighting Data Centers to Selling to One
Gandhi described himself as a longtime community advocate who had spent years challenging the effects of nearby data center development.
He contacted zoning officials, pursued noise measurements, wrote letters, and pushed authorities to respond to residents’ concerns. Eventually, he concluded that the facilities already surrounding the Regency were unlikely to disappear.
“I could use all my energy to keep fighting,” Gandhi told WUSA9. “But in reality, these concrete buildings aren’t going anywhere.”
That realization led him toward a different strategy. Rather than continuing to resist development while the neighborhood became increasingly boxed in, he began viewing the location as a valuable opportunity.
“Homes don’t belong right here,” Gandhi said.
Flack described the approach as sounding like “if you can’t beat them, join them.”
“It sounds like that,” Gandhi replied. “But in reality, what it is, is the best option.”
His reasoning is understandable. If data centers will continue expanding around the subdivision, selling collectively at a large premium could allow residents to leave on favorable terms instead of waiting for their quality of life or bargaining position to worsen.
At the same time, the argument risks making industrial encroachment feel inevitable. Communities may eventually stop asking whether development belongs near homes and begin asking only how much residents should receive to get out of the way.
A Larger Fight Across Northern Virginia
The Regency is not the only community considering a sale to data center developers.
Flack reported that more than 200 landowners in Prince William County had sought to sell property for a proposed development known as the Dulles South Innovation Center.
The nearly 2,000-acre project would have become the largest data center campus in Prince William County history.
Earlier in July, however, the county’s Board of Supervisors unanimously rejected the proposal. Developers indicated they were not abandoning the project, but its future remained uncertain.
The Prince William decision shows that securing agreements from property owners is only one part of the process. Local governments must also decide whether the land should be rezoned and whether the proposed infrastructure fits broader planning goals.
Even if every Regency homeowner agrees to sell, Loudoun County supervisors would still need to approve changing the land from residential use to data center development.
Flack emphasized that such approval is far from guaranteed.
That uncertainty leaves homeowners in an awkward position. They may spend months negotiating, debating, and preparing to move, only for officials to reject the development before the sale can be completed.
The $4 Million Offer Is Only the Beginning
The reported price has naturally drawn attention, but the larger story is about how rapidly data center construction is changing Northern Virginia.
Demand for cloud services, artificial intelligence, streaming, online business, and digital storage has made land near power and communications infrastructure extremely valuable. Residential communities that once seemed secure can suddenly become attractive redevelopment targets.
For data center companies, purchasing an entire subdivision may be more practical than building around scattered homes. For homeowners, selling together can produce far more money than listing properties individually.
But the transaction also represents the disappearance of a neighborhood.
Streets, backyards, gardens, pools, and playgrounds would be removed so the land could support another complex of industrial buildings. The community would survive only through the relationships residents chose to maintain after moving elsewhere.
Foster noted that this was not a theoretical problem for the Regency. Residents could hear the neighboring data centers from their own pools and see them directly across the street.
“At the end of the day, this is really about people and their lives,” Flack said.
That may be the clearest way to understand the decision. The homeowners are not merely selling square footage to a technology company; they are deciding whether the pressure surrounding their neighborhood has reached the point where leaving is preferable to staying.
Gandhi believes cashing out now offers residents the greatest control over what happens next. The remaining holdouts must decide whether they agree, knowing that the proposed millions could buy a new home but cannot guarantee a replacement for the community they would leave behind.
Mark grew up in the heart of Texas, where tornadoes and extreme weather were a part of life. His early experiences sparked a fascination with emergency preparedness and homesteading. A father of three, Mark is dedicated to teaching families how to be self-sufficient, with a focus on food storage, DIY projects, and energy independence. His writing empowers everyday people to take small steps toward greater self-reliance without feeling overwhelmed.
