Powered land
"Powered land" is a parcel that comes with a credible route to a large electricity supply. The power is not yet flowing to a building — there may be no building at all — but the hard part has been started: a substation site is identified or reserved, the utility has studied the load or committed to serve it, and in the best cases zoning and site plans are approved. Brokers now sell it as a category: a JLL broker told Bisnow that land which went for $10,000–$30,000 an acre before the boom now sells for $200,000 to $1 million an acre once it is powered, and that taking a parcel from acquisition to shovel-ready can take three to seven years. Cushman & Wakefield puts it more cautiously — "infrastructure-ready land is commanding a clear premium" — without a percentage.
Why it trades as its own product: building a data center takes far less time than getting a large grid connection. JLL puts the average wait for a grid connection in primary data center markets at more than four years, and Dominion Energy in Virginia has told large customers to expect up to about seven. A buyer who acquires land that is already partway through that process is buying back years of schedule. That is the premium, and it attaches to the power position, not to the soil.
What powered land usually does not include: buildings, backup generation, cooling or any of the electrical gear inside a data hall. The buyer designs and builds all of it.
Powered shell
A powered shell is a step further along. REIT filings describe it plainly. COPT Defense Properties, which has built single-tenant data center shells in Northern Virginia for a cloud customer, says its landlord role covers "only the land, core building and basic power" while the tenant funds the critical power, fiber and data center infrastructure. Landmark Infrastructure's filing put it as a shell that "includes the land and exterior structure of the building", and an appraisal paper by Valbridge Property Advisors describes a hardened shell "with the power stubbed to the building". Digital Realty sells the same idea under the name Powered Base Building. The tenant then installs the expensive, design-specific equipment itself: power distribution, uninterruptible power supplies, generators and cooling. The arrangement suits large cloud operators that have their own standard data-hall designs and would rather not pay a landlord to build something they would rip out.
Powered shells are almost always leased rather than sold, usually on long terms to a single tenant, and frequently built to suit. Rent is increasingly written around power rather than square feet: Fermi's 2025 annual report describes powered-shell leases "structured around contracted power capacity (megawatts)".
Warm shell and turnkey, for completeness
Between the extremes sit the other common labels. A warm shell generally means some of the mechanical and electrical infrastructure is already in place. A turnkey (or "wholesale") data center is fully fitted: the operator delivers critical power, cooling and security, and the tenant brings servers. Usage varies by market and by company, so in any negotiation the scope is defined in the contract, not by the label. Valbridge describes wholesale or turnkey space as leased to tenants of 250 kW or more, typically around 1 MW; Digital Realty pitches its Turn-Key Flex product at customers who lack the capital or expertise to build their own infrastructure. We found no consistent published definition of "warm shell", which is another reason to read the scope schedule rather than the brochure.
Side by side
| Powered land | Powered shell | Turnkey data center | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A parcel with an identified path to a large utility connection — often a substation site, a utility commitment or a study, sometimes zoning already approved. | A finished building envelope on a powered site, with utility power brought to the building. The data-hall fit-out is left to the tenant. | A fully fitted data hall: electrical distribution, backup power, cooling and security, ready for racks. |
| Who builds the critical systems | The buyer builds everything. | The tenant installs its own power distribution, UPS, generators and cooling. | The landlord or operator. |
| Typical counterparty | Developers, hyperscalers and AI/neocloud operators that build their own campuses. | Hyperscale cloud tenants that prefer to design their own data halls. | Enterprises, cloud and AI tenants that want to move in quickly. |
| Usual deal | Sale, purchase option or ground lease. | Long-term lease, often build-to-suit. | Lease of space and power (by kW or MW). |
| What the landowner sells | The land and its power position. | Usually nothing directly — a developer buys the land first, then builds the shell. | Same: the developer or operator owns or leases the land underneath. |
What it means if you own land
If you own acreage near a substation or a high-voltage line, you are in the powered-land business, not the shell business. The shell is something a developer builds on your land after buying or leasing it. Three practical points follow:
- The price follows the power, not the label. A parcel described as "powered" without a utility study or commitment behind it will be valued like raw land with potential. Buyers ask for the paper.
- You can move your land along the curve. Owners sometimes add value before selling — by securing rezoning or by working with a developer under an option, where the developer pays for studies and approvals and buys only if they succeed. Each step shifts risk and reward; get your own legal advice before signing an option.
- Ground leases exist. Some owners lease rather than sell, keeping the land and taking long-term rent. Developers accept this more readily for powered land than for raw land, because the power position is what they need to control.
For actual numbers, see what data centers have paid for land, where every deal is sourced and the ranges come from closed sales only.
What it means if you need capacity
The choice is about time and control. Powered land gives the most control and the most work: you carry the design, construction and the remaining interconnection risk. A powered-shell lease trades some control for speed and a lighter balance sheet. A turnkey lease is fastest and least flexible. Which one is available in a given region depends, again, on where the grid has room — the reason this site exists.
The filings, appraisal paper and reports quoted here are listed with links on our Sources page.