Three deals defined this week, and they rhyme in a way that should make anyone underwriting mid-market inference pay attention: the power got secured before the tenant did. A Bitcoin miner in southwest Michigan is negotiating to turn its ASICs off and 20 MW of AI colocation on. A regional edge operator in South Dallas drew another $650 million of construction debt to pour a fourth building before it has named who fills it. And a developer signed a 15-year take-or-pay on 210 MW in a southern state it still won't disclose. The scarce asset in 2026 is not the customer. It is committed megawatts and the capital to build them.

That is the through-line for this issue: power-first, tenant-second. The crypto refugees and the secondary-metro colos are absorbing the inference demand the hyperscalers are too big to chase, and they are doing it by locking grid headroom and financing first, then dialing for tenants. Below, the Michigan pivot that priced the week, the Red Oak financing comp, the Applied Digital lease that resets the take-or-pay template, and a Sacramento groundbreaking worth holding for its density floor.

Miners Off, GPUs On: A 20 MW Pivot in Dowagiac Prices the Mid-Market

Hyperscale Data put the marquee small deal on the board June 15, disclosing it is in advanced negotiations through its Alliance Cloud Services subsidiary for a master services agreement to deliver 20 MW of AI colocation at its campus in Dowagiac, Michigan — a Cass County town of about 5,500 roughly 30 miles north of South Bend. The structure is a 20-year colocation services agreement the company values north of $1.0 billion, with the first 10 MW live within 90 days of signing and the second 10 MW ninety days after that.

The tell is what funds it. To free the power, Hyperscale says it will wind down Bitcoin mining at the site over several months — the cleanest expression yet of the miner-to-inference pivot, a company literally switching off the hash to switch on the racks. A flagged 32 MW expansion in 2028 would push the same campus past 52 MW and the contract value toward $2.5 billion. White-space square footage for the 20 MW tranche was not disclosed, so the density everyone wants is, for now, unknowable — but a 20-year colo MSA at roughly $50 million a year per ten megawatts is itself the comp. The customer is unnamed; the megawatts are not.

Deal specs. Sponsor: Hyperscale Data / Alliance Cloud Services · Tenant: undisclosed AI deployer · Site: Dowagiac, MI — within city limits, ~30 mi N of South Bend, IN · Footprint: n/d · Load: 20 MW critical IT (path to 52 MW by 2028; density n/d — white-space sf not disclosed) · Lease: ~20-yr colocation MSA, take-or-pay style, private/undisclosed tenant credit; sponsor is a crypto-pivot · Deal value: >$1.0B over 20 yr · Source: StockTitan.

$650 Million More for Red Oak — and a 60 MW Building With No Name on It Yet

DataBank closed $1.45 billion across two transactions on June 15, and the piece that matters for this audience is the $650 million upsize to its Red Oak, Texas construction financing — roughly 20 miles south of downtown Dallas, inside Red Oak city limits. The upsize, $400 million bank plus a $250 million private placement (DataBank's first), funds the campus's fourth building and adds 60 MW of incremental IT capacity. It lifts total Red Oak financing to $2.65 billion against a campus whose first three buildings already pencil at 180 MW across 600,000 square feet.

Run the math on what's disclosed and you get the comp. The original three buildings blend to 300 W/sf (180 MW over 600 ksf) — a usable density benchmark for new South-Dallas wholesale slab. Total Red Oak financing of $2.65 billion across roughly 240 MW implies about $11 million per MW financed, all-in, on a secondary-metro edge campus. That a regional operator can draw a quarter-billion private placement to pour a 60 MW box before announcing a tenant is the financing story of the week: the capital is underwriting the megawatts, not the lease.

Deal specs. Sponsor: DataBank (DigitalBridge-backed) · Site: Red Oak, TX — within city limits, ~20 mi S of downtown Dallas · Footprint: ~600 ksf across first 3 buildings; building #4 sf n/d · Load: +60 MW incremental (campus to ~240 MW; blended ~300 W/sf on the financed 180 MW / 600 ksf) · Lease: n/a — $650M construction-financing upsize ($400M bank + $250M private placement); tenant n/d · Deal value: $2.65B total Red Oak financing (~$11M/MW) · Source: Construction Review.

210 MW, Take-or-Pay, Site Undisclosed — Applied Digital Resets the Template

This one breaks the under-75 MW rule on purpose, because it sets the comp the smaller deals will price off. On June 8, Applied Digital signed a 210 MW lease at Delta Forge 2, a fifth AI-factory campus in a southern state it declined to name, with a U.S.-based, high-investment-grade hyperscaler — its third lease with the same tenant. The terms are the news: a 15-year take-or-pay structure worth roughly $5.2 billion in base-term contracted revenue, or about $12.7 billion if all renewals run a 30-year term. The lease lifts Applied's contracted book to roughly 1.4 GW and $36 billion.

Strip the headline number to a per-megawatt rate and you get a template any mid-market sponsor can underwrite against: $5.2 billion over 210 MW over 15 years is about $1.65 million per MW per year of base rent, investment-grade, triple-net, take-or-pay. That Applied can sign 210 MW before disclosing the town — the same play, at scale, that DataBank and Hyperscale are running at 60 and 20 — tells you the structure has hardened into a standard. Footprint and square footage weren't disclosed, so density is n/d; the rate, not the rack, is the export here.

Deal specs. Sponsor: Applied Digital (APLD) · Tenant: investment-grade U.S. hyperscaler · Site: undisclosed southern state (sister campus Delta Forge 1 is Boyce, LA) · Footprint: n/d · Load: 210 MW critical IT (density n/d — sf not disclosed) · Lease: 15-yr take-or-pay, triple-net, renewals to 30 yr; investment-grade credit; ~$1.65M/MW/yr base rent · Deal value: ~$5.2B base term (~$12.7B with renewals) · Source: GlobeNewswire.

The Sacramento Density Floor: 18 MW, 150 ksf, 120 Watts a Foot

One to hold for the comp file. Prime Data Centers broke ground last month on SMF02 at McClellan Park, just north of downtown Sacramento, a 150,000 sf build carrying 18 MW. It is not this week's deal, but it is this week's most honest density number: 18 MW over 150 ksf is 120 W/sf, a low-density, air-cooled inference and enterprise-colo profile in a secondary California metro. Set it next to Red Oak's 300 W/sf blended Texas slab and you have the year's spread in two data points — the same workload class can ask for anywhere from a tenth of a kilowatt to a third of a kilowatt per foot, and the difference is cooling, market, and tenant mix, not magic.

For a developer pricing a 10–40 MW secondary-metro build, that 120-to-300 W/sf band is the underwriting range to bracket. Sacramento sits near the floor; South Dallas near the middle. The liquid-cooled hyperscaler boxes that quote north of a kilowatt a foot are a different product entirely — and a different newsletter.

Deal specs. Sponsor: Prime Data Centers · Site: McClellan Park, Sacramento, CA — within metro, ~7 mi N of downtown · Footprint: 150 ksf · Load: 18 MW (~120 W/sf) · Lease: n/d — speculative campus build; broke ground May 2026 · Source: DCD.

What to Watch Next Week

The Dowagiac MSA goes definitive. Hyperscale Data guided "coming weeks" on converting the 20 MW LOI to a signed colocation agreement. Watch the 8-K — and any name attached to the tenant, which would be the first hard credit datapoint on the deal.

DataBank pre-leases building #4. With $650 million now closed on the 60 MW Red Oak addition, the open question is who fills it. A pre-lease announcement would turn the financing comp into a rent comp.

Clay County, Florida zoning vote. A second and final hearing June 23 on a 12-month data-center permitting moratorium in the unincorporated county. A yes closes a Florida secondary submarket; a no opens it.

Oklahoma metro supply. Edmond weighs a moratorium-through-year-end and an Oklahoma County siting meeting lands June 22 — both bear on OKC-metro edge supply for sub-30 MW deployments.

RadiusDC / phoenixNAP close. The Q2 window on the ~26 MW Phoenix I campus (8 MW operating, 18 MW to build) runs out June 30. A completion notice would print a clean sub-30 MW edge comp.

Disclaimer: Edge Cases is Barrio Energy's deal-flow product. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation to transact, or a substitute for your own diligence. Specs are sourced from public filings, press, and reporting; verify before you wire anything.