Most commercial real estate brokers spend the first ten minutes of a site visit looking at ceiling height and loading docks. Logan Freeman, founder of Kansas City-based Midwest CRE Advisors, focuses on the electrical room. That difference is why his firm is closing edge data center transactions in secondary Midwest markets while many brokers are still learning about inference facilities.
Freeman has developed a repeatable evaluation process for industrial buildings considered for edge data center conversion. It begins before he walks through the front door. The first thing he looks for is external utility infrastructure: a transformer pad, a substation, and the service entrance size. These answers determine if a building warrants a closer look. “If I see a 2,000-amp service on a 40,000-square-foot building, I’m interested,” he explains. “If I see a 400-amp panel, I’m moving on unless there’s a clear utility upside story.”
Once inside, his first stop is the electrical room. He examines switchgear, panel configuration, and existing load capacity—not just what is there, but what it would cost to upgrade. A building with marginal power but a nearby substation and known expansion headroom presents a different investment case than one with marginal power and no upstream capacity.
Floor load is a deal-breaker most people miss. Data center equipment is heavy, and most industrial buildings are not built to handle it. A standard warehouse floor rated for 125 pounds per square foot falls short of what edge data centers require: 200 to 300 pounds per square foot. When structural capacity is lacking, remediation costs can make an otherwise promising building unworkable. Clear height matters too, but differently than for distribution warehouses. For a small to mid-size data center, 12 to 16 feet is sufficient. Column spacing is more important; obstructions create layout problems that are difficult to design around, making column-free or wide-bay floor plans command a premium.
HVAC and cooling infrastructure are the third area Freeman examines. He looks for raised floors, existing HVAC units, and any history of the building being used as a critical-environment facility. Former telecom central offices and switching facilities are particularly valuable. “They were designed for 24/7 uptime,” Freeman says. “They often already have battery rooms, generator connections, and redundant cooling infrastructure built in.” Buildings with such prior use can bypass years of fit-up work and millions in capital expenditure. With supply chain delays pushing lead times on critical equipment such as behind-the-meter turbines to 24 to 36 months, starting with infrastructure already on site can compress a deployment timeline by two years or more.
Beyond power and structure, Freeman checks fiber entry points and road access for equipment delivery. But the issue that most often kills deals? “I’m always looking at the roof,” he says. “Prior water intrusion on IT equipment is a conversation stopper.”
“A thorough walkthrough for a serious prospect takes about an hour,” Freeman notes. “I bring specialists in electrical, structural, and mechanical systems with me. By the end of that hour I have a pretty clear picture of whether the adaptive reuse story is a two-million-dollar fit-up or a twenty-million-dollar gut renovation. Those are very different conversations.”
The broader principle Freeman applies is this: the question to ask about an old industrial site is not what the building is, but what it is connected to. Most buyers only think to ask the first question. The ones asking the second are the ones finding the deals. For closed deal examples and more on Midwest CRE Advisors’ approach, visit their client success stories.
