Cerberus Capital Management and Yondr Group Acquire 40-Acre Manassas Site for 72MW Data Center Campus

Certain funds and accounts managed by Cerberus Capital Management and Yondr Group have acquired a 40-acre site in Manassas, Virginia, to develop a 72-megawatt hyperscale data center campus, the companies announced Aug. 3. The facility is expected to become operational in 2029 and is designed to serve cloud, enterprise, and artificial intelligence workloads.

Financial terms of the land acquisition were not disclosed. The project represents a development-strategy investment by Cerberus, an alternative investment firm with approximately $72 billion in assets under management across credit, private equity, and real estate strategies, in partnership with Yondr Group, a global developer, owner, and operator of hyperscale data centers.

Site Location and Project Scale

The 40-acre parcel is located in Manassas, within Prince William County, Virginia — a submarket that has emerged as an expansion zone as land and power availability in the core Loudoun County and Ashburn corridor have grown increasingly constrained. At 72 megawatts of planned capacity, the campus is consistent with a multi-building, multi-phase development approach common to hyperscale projects in the Northern Virginia market, though no building count or square footage has been published for this project.

The companies characterized the project's power position as a differentiator, noting near-term power availability in a market that has faced grid and substation capacity bottlenecks in recent years. A 2029 ready-for-service date positions the campus to align with anticipated utility and transmission improvements in the region.

Why Northern Virginia, Why Now

Northern Virginia is the largest and most established data center market in the world, with significant hyperscale and cloud presence, dense fiber connectivity, and proximity to major population and network hubs in the Northeastern United States. Despite that scale, the market has experienced sustained supply constraints driven by power availability challenges, making new deliveries with secured utility solutions increasingly valuable to hyperscale tenants.

Demand for data center capacity in the region continues to be driven by cloud migration, enterprise IT outsourcing, and the rapid growth of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads. The Cerberus-Yondr campus is explicitly positioned to serve all three use cases.

The deal also reflects a broader institutional capital shift toward digital infrastructure at a time when traditional commercial real estate sectors face headwinds. U.S. office vacancy has climbed to the high-teens to low-20s percent nationally — CBRE forecasts overall office vacancy near 19.8% — and overall commercial property vacancy is under pressure from persistent remote and hybrid work trends. Against that backdrop, data centers — particularly purpose-built hyperscale campuses backed by long-term tenant demand — have attracted growing allocations from alternative investment managers.

Partner Perspectives

Thomas Wagner, Senior Managing Director and Head of North American Real Estate at Cerberus, said the project is well-positioned to support hyperscale demand given its power availability and delivery timeline.

"We are pleased to partner with Yondr to deliver a high-quality project in Northern Virginia that is well-positioned to support hyperscale demand," Wagner said. "With near-term power availability in a historically constrained market and a 2029 ready-for-service date, this project will be well-positioned to support continued customer demand while creating long-term value for our partners and investors. We look forward to advancing this project alongside Yondr and to identifying compelling opportunities to invest in high-quality real assets supported by the strong fundamentals in the digital economy."

Aaron Wangenheim, CEO of Yondr Group, said the acquisition extends the company's North American footprint and reflects continued demand across its global portfolio.

"We continue to see strong demand for well-located capacity across our global portfolio including Northern Virginia, and this acquisition marks another important step in growing our North American footprint," Wangenheim said. "Bringing a project of this scale online in a market like Northern Virginia takes deep operational expertise and strategic capital, and our partnership with Cerberus brings both together to deliver the capacity hyperscale customers increasingly need."

Strategic Context for Cerberus and Yondr

For Cerberus, the Manassas campus fits within a stated strategy of investing in real assets tied to digital economy fundamentals. The firm, founded in 1992, manages approximately $72 billion in assets and invests across credit, private equity, and real estate.

Yondr Group specializes in developing campuses purpose-built for hyperscale cloud and AI workloads. The company operates globally and has been expanding its North American presence. The Manassas project adds to that pipeline in one of the most sought-after — and supply-constrained — data center submarkets in the world.

The 2029 operational target places the campus's delivery within a window that both companies appear to view as a significant demand period, as AI infrastructure buildouts by major cloud providers are expected to require substantial new capacity through the latter half of the decade. By securing land and power now, Cerberus and Yondr are positioning the campus to capture leasing demand ahead of that window.

Sources

Cerberus Capital Management press release via PR Newswire, Aug. 3, 2026