How the National Park Service Wound Up in a Data Center Deal

A national park site and Civil War conflict area in Virginia is now a battleground in the fight over data center development on federal real estate — and Congress is starting to get involved.

On July 23, the Prince William Times reported that Trump’s National Park Service is “considering a land swap” to allow “at least four data centers” on land within the boundaries of Prince William Forest Park in northern Virginia, one of the largest green spaces in the Washington D.C. metro area and a flashpoint during the Civil War. Since then, my colleagues and I have confirmed based on interviews with sources familiar with the plan, public lobbying disclosures, and previously unreported correspondence from Congress to the Park Service that, indeed, there has been a concerted behind-the-scenes effort to make this swap happen, going back more than a year. Many of those concerned about the idea of this exchange told me they’ve been unable to get clear answers from the Park Service on the likelihood of the swap.

Here’s what we do know: A data center development company, Highland Digital, under an LLC registered by their legal counsel, has sought permission from Prince William County to build a large tech infrastructure complex next to the park, at a site other companies have sought to rezone for that purpose since at least 2022. Though the land is within the park’s boundaries, it is not actually owned by the park; it was held by a private entity before the site was established, enabling it to be used for development through a quirk in public land use law colloquially known as “inholding.”

Meanwhile, the data center backlash has made siting new projects in Northern Virginia increasingly difficult. In Prince William County specifically, supervisors rejected a large data center project near Dulles Airport last month. The sort of land Highland Digital has access to would be challenging to develop in this political environment, given that county planning office staff said it also included wetlands and streams that made permitting difficult.

So as Highland Digital struggled to get permission, it came up with a Plan B, according to two local park conservation advocates familiar with the project’s progress: It could swap some of the land in the park with other parcels close by owned by the Park Service without as much ecological sensitivity. The company retained a lobbyist, Jeff Small, who was a senior adviser to the Interior Department under the first Trump administration and last year publicly boasted of close ties to the White House (which distanced itself from him in response). Small lobbied the National Park Service and Interior Department for a land exchange on Highland Digital’s behalf starting in May 2025 through the first quarter of this year, according to federal lobbying disclosures.

Around this time, Ashley Studholme, executive director of the Prince William Conservation Alliance, first learned about the land swap proposal. Studholme told me Highland Digital CEO Peter Batten proposed the idea to the park’s superintendent George Liffert in a meeting the three had that month with Small in attendance. Highland Digital provided Studholme and Liffert with a map she shared with me outlining different parcels that would be involved. Studholme said that afterwards, nearly identical parcel delineations were then added to an official National Park Service GIS map online. This meeting and map change assertion were first reported by the Prince William Times.

Kyle Hart, a senior program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, told me his organization has had “loose discussions” with Park Service staff about the land swap, which he described as “a newer thing” that “we know has been proposed.”

In response to my request for comment, NPS sent the following statement attributed to an unnamed spokesperson: “The National Park Service preserves the historic, cultural and natural integrity of national parks, including Prince William Forest Park. The NPS does not regulate private land use outside park boundaries or comment on speculative uses.”

On paper, Hart told me, the swap has some upsides for NPS. The Park Service would get more land in the deal than Highland Digital would acquire. It could also permanently protect sensitive resources. But the cumulative impact of the exchange, he said, is unambiguously in Highland Digital’s favor.

“The developer comes out ahead,” he told me. “You combine that with another 100 or so acres [they hold] that is direct road frontage, and you have land primed for development without any of the hiccups of pesky streams and so forth. And they’d be doing this to expedite a data center within their borders directly adjacent to the land they’re protecting.”

In mid-July, before the Prince William Times story published, staff for Representative Eugene Vindman — the Democratic congressman whose district includes the park — contacted the Park Service requesting “reports of a potential exchange or transfer of land within Prince William Forest Park. The inquiry asked for information on deed ownership as well as any legal authority for the Park Service to exchange land with a private corporation for development without congressional approval.

Vindman’s staff provided their request to me this week, informing me they never heard back.

“I’m very concerned about the proposed data center development in and near Prince William Forest Park,” Vindman said in a statement his office provided. “I have been clear that data centers should not be built near parks, schools, or residential communities, and I’ll continue to fight for our community on this issue.”

Very little about Highland Digital or its data center plans is available online, while Data Center Dynamics, a trade publication, has reported that details about the data center are “sparse.” A public meeting to discuss the project planned for the parcel the company currently owns was scheduled for May, but was then canceled after the developer rescinded a permitting application with Prince William County without a stated reason.

Highland Digital did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did representatives from Jeff Small’s firm, 76 Group, who was registered to lobby for the developer on behalf of EIS Solutions, the firm’s name before it rebranded in 2021. Small’s contact information is not public and I was unable to reach him for this story.

With reporting by Matthew Zeitlin.