Thursday, November 6, 2025
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Data Centers

Data CentersDevelopmentIndustrialMidwestWisconsin

Vantage Data Centers, Wisconsin Building Trades Council Partner on $15B Port Washington Campus

by Kristin Harlow

PORT WASHINGTON, WIS. — Vantage Data Centers and the Wisconsin Building Trades Council have partnered to build the previously announced Lighthouse data center campus in Port Washington, a northern Milwaukee suburb located along Lake Michigan. The $15 billion-plus, privately funded investment will require a workforce of more than 4,000 skilled construction workers over a three-year period and will rely on local union labor to the fullest extent possible. The new campus, part of OpenAI and Oracle’s Stargate expansion, will feature four data centers. Completion is slated for 2028. Once complete, Vantage and Oracle will create more than 1,000 long-term jobs and thousands more indirect jobs. Lighthouse is designed to preserve local resources, support new clean energy resources and advance environmental stewardship.

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DataBank-ATL-1-Data-Center-at-Georgia-Tech
Data CentersFeaturesIndustrial

What Developers Should Know About Repositioning Commercial Properties into AI-Ready Data Centers

by Taylor Williams

By Felicia Santiago, architect, Gensler As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies evolve and scale, digital infrastructure must follow suit. While advocating for historic buildings to find new life via preservation as data centers is understandable, not every structure is well-suited for this type of repurposing. But this shouldn’t stop developers from overlooking two big opportunities for data center construction plays: revitalizing existing vacant properties as data centers and re-tooling legacy data centers for today’s AI needs. The beauty of adaptive reuse is that it theoretically preserves the existing fabric of community while incorporating modern infrastructure where it is needed — within the fabric of the community. Another opportunity to repurpose existing facilities into modern data centers involves potentially bypassing regulatory items that cause challenges and delays, such as rezoning, since these data centers would be grandfathered into that use. Legacy data centers — once the backbone of enterprise computing — are increasingly outdated and unable to support the energy intensity, cooling demands and density required by AI infrastructure. Rather than defaulting to new construction, there’s an urgent opportunity to recycle existing buildings. The sustainability practices of repurposed buildings should not be overlooked as the need for data centers continues to grow.  …

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Data CentersDevelopmentIndustrialMichiganMidwest

OpenAI Plans to Build Data Center Near Ann Arbor, Invest $450B Over Next Three Years

by Kristin Harlow

SALINE TOWNSHIP, MICH. — OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has unveiled plans to build a new Stargate campus in Saline Township near Ann Arbor as part of its 4.5-gigawatt partnership with Oracle. Combined with capacity from OpenAI’s six previously announced U.S. Stargate sites with Oracle and SoftBank, this project brings Stargate to more than 8 gigawatts of planned capacity and more than $450 billion in investment over the next three years. In January, the company announced a $500 billion, 10-gigawatt commitment. Related Digital is developing the Stargate Michigan campus. Construction is expected to begin in early 2026 and create more than 2,500 union construction jobs. DTE Energy will serve the campus using existing excess transmission capacity, avoiding impacts on local energy supply. OpenAI says that any upgrades required to support operations will be funded by the project and not local ratepayers. The project will span 1.6 million square feet across three buildings, according to Crain’s Detroit Busienss. OpenAI has previously announced Stargate sites in Texas, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Ohio.

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Aligned-DFW-03-Mansfield
AcquisitionsData CentersIndustrialSoutheastTop Stories

BlackRock-Led Consortium Agrees to Acquire Aligned Data Centers for $40B

by Abby Cox

DALLAS — A consortium led by BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, Abu Dhabi’s MGX and the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership has entered into an agreement to acquire Dallas-based Aligned Data Centers for approximately $40 billion. The sellers are Macquarie Asset Management and its co-investment partners. Subject to regulatory approvals, the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026. This deal marks Macquarie Asset Management’s second major data center transaction in the last year, following the 2024 sale of AirTrunk to a consortium of investors that valued the company at $16 billion. Aligned Data Centers has rapidly scaled across North and South America, serving hyperscale, AI and enterprise customers. In recent years, Aligned has expanded its footprint from two operational facilities in Dallas and Phoenix to more than 50 campuses across the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Colombia, representing over 5 gigawatts (GW) of operational and planned capacity, including assets under development.   Aligned also obtained the first-ever green data center securitization, and first-ever sustainability-linked financing for a data center platform, according to company representatives. “This transaction underscores Macquarie Asset Management’s ability to consistently identify key thematics early and find opportunities that create value for our clients and partners,” says Ben …

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AcquisitionsData CentersGeorgiaSoutheast

Principal Asset Management Sells 185,000 SF Data Center in Alpharetta, Georgia

by John Nelson

ALPHARETTA, GA. — Principal Asset Management has sold a 185,000-square-foot, 15.2-megawatt (MW) data center in Alpharetta, a northern suburb of Atlanta. The buyer and sales price were not disclosed, but the acquisition included developable land adjacent to the data center. A U.S.-based data center fund managed by Principal purchased the facility in 2022 in a joint venture with Lincoln Rackhouse, a division of Lincoln Property Co. The single-story data center was leased to two unnamed companies at the time of sale, one of which is a Fortune 100 financial services firm. The data center was originally built in 2009 as a build-to-suit for a telecommunications tech company.

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Chantilly Premier
Data CentersIndustrialLoansSoutheastVirginia

Penzance Receives $100M Construction Loan for Northern Viriginia Data Center

by Abby Cox

CHANTILLY, VA. — Penzance has received a $100 million construction loan for the development of Chantilly Premier, a 241,000-square-foot data center in Chantilly, roughly 34 miles west of Washington, D.C. Marshall Scallan, Michael Zelin and Bindi Shah of Cushman & Wakefield arranged the loan through QuadReal Property Group on behalf Penzance. Penzance recently broke ground on the fully preleased center, which is situated on 12 acres of a 79-acre site, located adjacent to the Chantilly Auto Park, according to the Washington Business Journal. An affiliate of Penzance originally acquired the vacant parcel in August 2022. Chantilly Premier is slated for completion by mid-2027.

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Data CentersDevelopmentIllinoisIndustrialMidwestTop Stories

Related Midwest, CRG Break Ground on Phase I of 440-Acre Quantum Shore Chicago Innovation District

by Kristin Harlow

CHICAGO — Related Midwest and CRG have broken ground on the Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park (IQMP), the first phase of Quantum Shore Chicago, a 440-acre, master-planned technology and innovation district along the Chicago lakefront. The project is located on the former U.S. Steel South Works site at 8080 S. DuSable Lake Shore Drive in the South Chicago neighborhood. The co-developers are receiving financing from funds managed by Blue Owl Capital on both the land acquisition and vertical development of facilities for IQMP’s anchor tenant, PsiQuantum, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company with a mission “to build and deploy the world’s first useful quantum computers.” Quantum computing utilizes quantum mechanics to solve complex problems such as climate, energy and defense challenges faster than traditional computers.  Created through a public-private partnership with State of Illinois and federal agencies, IQMP will occupy 128 acres on the southern end of the development site. In addition to PsiQuantum’s 80,700-square-foot office and research facility — the first of several buildings the firm will eventually occupy — the campus will include a cryoplant (a facility that uses extremely low temperatures to produce gases like liquid helium and nitrogen for high-tech applications) and equipment labs, as well as …

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OpenAI-Data-Center_Abilene-Texas
Data CentersDevelopmentIndustrialNew MexicoOhioTexasTop Stories

OpenAI, Partners Announce Five New Data Centers as Part of $500B Stargate Project

by Hayden Spiess

SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI, along with Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) and SoftBank, has announced plans for the development of five new data centers in the United States. The new projects are part of the $500 billion Stargate initiative to expand American data center infrastructure, which was announced in January at the White House.  Together with the flagship site in Abilene, Texas, the new data centers will bring Stargate to more than $400 billion in investment and almost 7 gigawatts (GW) of planned capacity over the next three years.  OpenAI and Oracle will partner on three of the facilities — located in Shackelford County, Texas; Doña Ana County, New Mexico; and an additional site at an undisclosed location in the Midwest — which represent a $300 billion agreement between the companies.  According to OpenAI, these projects are expected to create more than 25,000 onsite jobs and thousands of additional jobs throughout the country. Together, the facilities will offer up to 4.5 GW of capacity.  A partnership between SoftBank and OpenAI will develop the other two data centers, which will have the capacity to scale to 1.5 GW over the next 18 months. One of the sites is located in Lordstown, Ohio, with …

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Frontier-Data-Center
Data CentersDevelopmentIndustrialTexasTop Stories

Vantage Data Centers to Invest $25B for Mega-Campus in Shackelford County, Texas

by Abby Cox

SHACKELFORD COUNTY, TEXAS — Vantage Data Centers will invest $25 billion to develop a 3.7 million-square-foot, large-scale data center campus in Shackelford County, which is situated near Abilene, Texas, and about 120 miles west of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Construction of the new 1.4-gigawatt (GW) campus, dubbed “Frontier,” has already begun, with the first of 10 buildings scheduled for delivery in the second half of 2026. The 1,200-acre, multi-phase project is expected to create jobs for 5,000 people across construction and ongoing operations at the campus, according to company representatives. Additionally, Vantage has pledged annual college scholarships for Shackelford County students throughout the lifespan of the project and plans to hire locally while providing training opportunities. “This investment in Texas will be a significant economic growth driver for the area as we rapidly deploy the digital infrastructure needed to support AI applications,” says Dana Adams, president of Vantage’s North America operations. The Frontier campus will be capable of supporting server racks with a power draw of more than 250 kilowatts (kW), while utilizing liquid cooling to support the next generation of graphics processing unit (GPU) loads. Vantage is also pursuing LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for Frontier, which …

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Silver Spring data center
AcquisitionsData CentersIndustrialLeasing ActivityMarylandSoutheast

Sansone Group, Priseda Acquire 214,000 SF Data Center in Metro D.C.

by Abby Cox

SILVER SPRING, MD. — A partnership between St. Louis-based Sansone Group and locally based data center operator Priseda has acquired a 214,000-square-foot data center located in Silver Spring, just north of Washington, D.C. JLL Capital Markets arranged acquisition financing through Maryland-based Poverni Sheikh Group (PSG). The tier IV data center currently supports mission-critical operations and is slated for infrastructure enhancements, including the modernization of tier transitions, which will improve data center infrastructure performance and reliability, as well as an expansion of power capacity up to 100 megawatts. The new ownership is actively leasing the property and has secured a long-term lease with an undisclosed anchor tenant.

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