The week priced both ends of this market at once. At the top, AMD put chipmaker credit behind 529 MW of 15-year leases on converted mining campuses — call it $1.76M per MW-year, and every mid-size take-or-pay in a secondary metro will now get marked against that paper. At the bottom, the 8–75 MW edge deal is getting harder to close, and not for lack of power. Forney, Texas is drafting a citywide ban. Tulare, California tabled a fairgrounds ground lease after hours of public comment. Crusoe's county-park site in Virginia surfaced via FOIA request instead of a press release. The constraint in this market has stopped being megawatts. It's permission.

Five stories this week: the AMD–Core Scientific lease package that resets the comp, Crusoe's quiet 150 acres in Franklin County, Virginia, a dead semiconductor fab in Eugene going for roughly $17 a foot, Global Stack's fairgrounds strategy hitting its first real market test, and one Texas county drawing two opposite zoning maps fifteen miles apart.

15 Years, 529 MW, $14 Billion: AMD Puts Chipmaker Credit Behind the Miner Conversion Trade

One deal this week clears our usual 75 MW ceiling, and it's in the issue for two reasons: it's a multi-site package whose smaller slugs are exactly the size this audience transacts, and it sets the lease-term benchmark everything below it will price off. On July 27, Core Scientific signed 15-year leases covering 529 MW of critical IT load across five sites — Pecos and Hunt County in Texas, Muskogee in Oklahoma, Auburn in Alabama, and Dalton in Georgia — with AMD taking 377 MW directly and an unnamed AMD-backed neocloud taking the remaining 152 MW. Base contracted revenue exceeds $14 billion, with options extending to 30 years and rights for AMD to reserve up to 1,925 MW more through late 2028.

Run the arithmetic: $14B across 529 MW over 15 years is roughly $26.5M per MW of total base, or about $1.76M per MW-year. That's the number to write down. This is the first time a chipmaker — not a hyperscaler — has anchored long-dated leases on converted mining campuses, and the Auburn and Dalton slugs at a combined 152 MW show AMD is willing to backstop neocloud credit at the mid-size sites where most of you operate. AMD also took a warrant for up to 30 million CORZ shares, part vested immediately and the rest vesting as megawatts energize — the equity kicker riding on delivery, not the signature. Core Scientific's Q2 disclosure confirms the mining wind-down that makes the whole conversion trade legible: the bitcoin fleet is now the land bank.

Deal specs. Sponsor: Core Scientific (landlord, crypto-pivot); AMD (tenant, 377 MW) + unnamed AMD-backed neocloud (152 MW) · Site: five campuses — Pecos, TX (Reeves County); Hunt County, TX (~45 mi NE of Dallas city limits); Muskogee, OK (within city limits); Auburn, AL (within city limits); Dalton, GA (within city limits, ~30 mi S of Chattanooga) · Footprint: n/d · Load: 529 MW critical IT, expansion rights to 2.5 GW total through late 2028 · Density: n/d · Lease: 15-yr initial, options to 30 yrs, escalator n/d, investment-grade anchor (AMD) plus warrant for up to 30M CORZ shares · Deal value: >$14B base contracted revenue (~$1.76M per MW-year, computed) · Source: CoinDesk.

Project Flash: Crusoe's 150 County-Owned Acres in Virginia, Surfaced by FOIA Instead of a Press Release

Franklin County, Virginia has been negotiating with Crusoe since November over roughly 150 acres of the county-owned Summit View Business Park on US 220 outside Rocky Mount — a 50–100 MW project on land that already has grid and natural gas infrastructure in the ground, per documents obtained by FOIA and reported by DCD. Neither Crusoe nor the county has confirmed the deal publicly. What did surface publicly, on July 27, was a misconduct complaint against county leadership alleging improper conduct in how the negotiations were handled.

The playbook itself is the one this audience runs: county-owned business park, entitlements and utilities pre-positioned, a landlord that wants the deal more than you do. Cheap entry. The Franklin County lesson is that it is no longer quiet entry — eight months of NDA-phase negotiation on public land ended with a document dump and a complaint, not a groundbreaking. Flag this one as developing; there is no executed land deal to spec yet.

Deal specs. Sponsor: Crusoe (developer, crypto-pivot — divested mining March 2025); Franklin County, VA (landowner); no compute tenant named · Site: Summit View Business Park, Rocky Mount, VA — ~20 mi S of Roanoke city limits · Footprint: n/d (~150 acres of a 540-acre park) · Load: 50–100 MW planned · Density: n/d · Lease: n/d — land deal not yet executed; talks since Nov 2025, unconfirmed by either party · Tenant credit: private (venture/infra-backed) · Source: DCD.

The Cheapest 1.2 Million Square Feet in the Northwest

The former Hynix semiconductor plant in west Eugene, Oregon — 1.2M sq ft on a 200-acre campus, idle since 2008, fab-grade electrical service and industrial water still attached — reportedly went at auction for about $20M. That's roughly $17 a square foot for a building whose replacement power infrastructure alone would run multiples of the price. On July 14 the buyer's land-use attorney filed a zone-verification request asking Eugene to confirm data center as a permitted use under the site's E-1 Campus Employment zoning — which tells you the intended use even though escrow hasn't closed and the buyer, reportedly True Data Center, remains unconfirmed until it does.

Fab conversions are the purest expression of the 2026 trade: buy the interconnect, not the dirt. No MW figure has been disclosed, so we won't invent a density — but a building engineered for semiconductor manufacturing does not need to apologize for its electrical room. Inside city limits, existing industrial zoning, utilities in place. The entitlement risk that killed two other stories in this issue is largely pre-solved here, which is the entire thesis.

Deal specs. Sponsor: unidentified buyer under contract (reportedly True Data Center); zone request filed by attorney Bill Kloos · Site: former Hynix plant, west Eugene, OR — within Eugene city limits · Footprint: 1,200 ksf on 200 acres, idle since 2008 · Load: n/d (fab-grade service in place) · Density: n/d · Lease: fee acquisition, ~$20M reported auction price (~$17/sf); E-1 zone verification pending · Tenant credit: private / unknown · Source: Lookout Eugene-Springfield.

Cotton Candy and Colocation: Global Stack's 8–10 MW Fairgrounds Pods Stall in Tulare

Global Stack's land strategy is the most aggressive inner-ring edge play in the country: 2–5 acre ground leases at California state fairgrounds, terms proposed up to 100 years, revenue share to the fair boards, 8–10 MW per site, roughly $20M per site, up to 70 sites by 2030. If fully built, that's 560–700 MW aggregate assembled entirely from public land nobody else was bidding on. On July 21 the strategy hit its first real market test, and the Tulare County fair board tabled the lease vote after hours of public comment; residents rallied against the proposal two days later. Calistoga talks are already dead. The Kings County fair board in Hanford is still evaluating.

The specs are thin because the deal is thin — no anchor tenant disclosed, no water from the city per the fair's own CEO, construction split across three affiliated LLCs. But the strategic question is real: whoever solves the community-consent problem at 10 MW owns California edge. Global Stack hasn't yet.

Deal specs. Sponsor: Global Stack LLC (with MeshClusters LLC, DAA Parking LLC, PanGalactica LLC); counterparties are state fair boards · Site: Tulare County Fairgrounds, within Tulare city limits (Visalia metro); Kings Fairgrounds, Hanford, CA pending · Footprint: 2–5 acre pads per site · Load: 8–10 MW per site; up to 70 sites by 2030 (~560–700 MW aggregate if built) · Density: n/d · Lease: ground lease on public land, proposed terms up to 100 yrs, revenue share, ~$20M per site; Tulare vote tabled July 21 · Tenant credit: private / speculative, no anchor tenant · Source: The Business Journal.

Kaufman County Splits the Map: Forney Bans, Terrell Zones

Same county, fifteen miles apart, opposite answers. In Forney — twenty miles east of Dallas city limits — a reported 20 MW project sitting roughly 1,000 feet from a subdivision deadlocked the planning commission 3–3 in June, and when the appeal reached council on July 21, the council went further than denial: it directed staff to draft an ordinance prohibiting data centers in all zoning districts. That's an escalation from April's rules, which had already imposed a 5,000-foot residential setback and a conditional-use permit. Forney went from "far from houses" to "not here" in ninety days.

Terrell, meanwhile, read the same demand wave and drafted a purpose-built "Technology Infrastructure Campus" zoning district, with a public hearing held July 23 and council consideration set for August 18. For anyone chasing DFW-east exurb sites, the entitlement map redrew itself in one week — and the redraw, not any single deal, is the story. Sites don't die in this market because the substation said no. They die because the council did.

Deal specs. Sponsor: n/d (Forney project developer unnamed in coverage) · Site: Forney, TX (within city limits, ~20 mi E of Dallas city limits); Terrell, TX (~32 mi E of Dallas) · Footprint: n/d · Load: 20 MW (reported, the denied Forney project) · Density: n/d · Lease: n/a — zoning actions; Forney drafting all-district ban, Terrell's new district to council Aug 18 · Tenant credit: n/d · Source: inForney.

What to Watch Next Week

Aug 3 — Menomonie, WI. City council reviews the draft I-4 zoning ordinance for the 320-acre data center site. No vote scheduled; the standards cover noise, water, setbacks, and reclamation.

Aug 3 — Lakeland, FL. Second and final reading on the one-year data center moratorium.

Aug 5 — Vineland, NJ. The planning board decides whether the partially built DataOne facility — building Nebius's US behind-the-meter site — proceeds. Organized opposition expected, under oath.

Aug 5 — Kansas City, MO. Planning commission takes up the 20-story downtown conversion of the Western Newspaper Union building — a rare vertical urban-core test.

Aug 18 — Terrell, TX. Council votes on the Technology Infrastructure Campus district, the pro-development half of the Kaufman County split. Also watch Core Scientific's 10-Q for site-level MW allocations behind the AMD leases, and Loudoun County's September 15 moratorium vote.

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.