Nobody signed a marquee tenant in the sub-75 MW band this week. What got done instead was the unglamorous work of turning contested or stranded positions into bankable ones: a 55 MW colo entitlement in the Charlotte exurbs that took twelve months and a council member calling it "Pandora's box," a 73 MW campus bought out of Chapter 11 on university land in Bryan, Texas, a 20 MW neocloud retrofit in Michigan that swapped $200 million of equity ATM for a project-debt sizing, and an 11 MW power contract in Mississippi executed on September 30 for one very specific reason: TVA started charging about $1.5 million a megawatt for data center load the next morning.
Read together, the week says capital is contracting faster than real estate is being named. Boost Run filed an 8-K on October 6 for a $525.6 million, five-year GPU contract with Cohere, prepaid, with a refund trigger if minimum racks are not accepted by July 15, 2027, and did not disclose the site. Gorilla Technology LOI'd a running 6 MW colo with a 30 MW utility letter and did not disclose the state. The deals that did name an address are the ones below, and every one of them sits inside municipal limits. The edge, this week, is in town.
Salisbury Clears 55 MW at 186 Watts a Foot, Then Writes a 60 MW Cap, 65 dB and 1,250 Gallons a Day Into the Zoning
Salisbury City Council voted unanimously on October 6 to approve the conditional-district rezoning for Trammell Crow's data center at 1477 Henderson Grove Church Road, a 296,000 sf, 55 MW build on roughly 95 acres off I-85 that Flexential will operate. Phase one is 36 MW of critical load; the full 55 MW is secured from Duke Energy. The application was filed April 30 at about 400,000 sf, got a text amendment in June, cleared Planning Board in August, and shrank by a quarter on the way to the vote. Twelve months from land contract to entitlement for a multi-tenant colo in a secondary metro is now the timeline, not the exception. Salisbury Post has the vote.
The conditions are the story for anyone underwriting the next one of these. The district hard-caps the site at 60 MW, so Flexential's expansion path is five megawatts before it is back in front of council. Property-line noise is capped at 65 dB(A) with quarterly city inspections. Cooling is closed-loop, roughly a 200-gallon fill, with domestic water limited to 1,250 gallons a day. Thirty percent canopy retention. Violations run $250 a day and escalate to injunction, and any change to size or utility service triggers reapproval. No incentives: the 2022 distribution-center abatements lapsed and nobody asked for new ones. At 186 W/sf on the full build, this is a retail-colo density, which is exactly why a city that could not get comfortable with a hyperscale box got comfortable with this one.
Same sponsor, different fight, same week. Cheyenne City Council on October 12 finalized annexation and Light Industrial zoning for Trammell Crow's 162-acre Orchard Hills parcel abutting the Meta campus, overriding its own Planning Commission's denial and rejecting a last-minute postponement bid. Megawatts and square footage are not disclosed; the model is build-to-suit. Cap City News covered the vote. Two entitlements in one week, both over local objection, is Trammell Crow telling you where its land bank is.
Deal specs. Sponsor: Trammell Crow Company (developer/landowner), Flexential (operator) · Site: Salisbury, NC, Charlotte MSA, ~40 mi NE of Charlotte; within Salisbury city limits, ~5 mi SW of downtown · Footprint: 296 ksf on ~95 acres · Load: 55 MW total, 36 MW phase one, 60 MW zoning cap (~186 W/sf at full build, ~122 W/sf phase one) · Lease: owner-operated multi-tenant colo; tenant leases n/d; no incentives · Tenant credit: Flexential, private, PE-backed (Morgan Stanley Infrastructure / GI Partners) · Deal value: n/d · Source: Salisbury Post.
73 MW Out of Chapter 11: ThisWay Global Takes the RELLIS Shell on Texas A&M Land
The RELLIS Campus Data and Research Center in Bryan, Texas was a roughly $700 million project with a partially built first building when its developer filed Chapter 11 on November 5, 2025 after a financial partner walked. ThisWay Global, an Austin sovereign-AI and HPC outfit, closed on the court-approved acquisition September 30 and announced the replan October 8: a phased 73 MW AI/HPC campus on about 25 acres of Texas A&M University System ground, with a 73 MW substation, closed-loop direct-to-chip liquid cooling, and the existing shell (originally half office and classroom) re-engineered to carry about a quarter of the campus compute. Innovation and training center targeted Q2 2027. DCD and KBTX have the details; Data Center Knowledge has the capital stack.
Capital came from ThisWay with Centaurus Capital and Skylar Capital Management, structured, per the buyer, "to make creditors whole." The purchase price is not disclosed, the BTU power request is not disclosed, and the ground-lease terms with TAMUS are not disclosed, so treat the comp as directional: a distressed, partially-built, sub-75 MW shell on public land with a replaced Bryan tax agreement and a Brazos County abatement still pending. What it tells you is that there is now a bid for stalled mid-size projects at a price that clears unsecured creditors, which is more than the last cycle's stranded crypto shells could say. Density is 2.9 MW an acre, which for a liquid-cooled campus on a university research park is the right order of magnitude.
Deal specs. Sponsor: ThisWay Global with Centaurus Capital and Skylar Capital Management; landlord Texas A&M University System · Site: Bryan, TX, Bryan–College Station MSA; within Bryan city limits at the RELLIS campus on Hwy 47, ~6 mi NW of downtown · Footprint: n/d (existing partially built shell plus phased expansion on ~25 acres) · Load: 73 MW planned, phased; first building ~25% of campus compute (density n/d, ~2.9 MW/acre) · Lease: asset acquisition out of Chapter 11; ground lease on TAMUS land, terms n/d; owner-operated · Tenant credit: private, VC-backed operator; no anchor tenant disclosed · Deal value: n/d; prior project ~$700M; creditors made whole · Source: DCD.
Dowagiac at 333 Watts a Foot: $100 to $150 Million of Project Debt on 20 Contracted Megawatts, and $200 Million Less Equity
Hyperscale Data's 8-K on October 13 did two things. It cut the company's at-the-market equity program from $300 million to $100 million after raising $49.8 million at about $0.41 a share, and it said preliminary estimates show the Dowagiac, Michigan buildout "will support project debt financing between $100 million to $150 million." The asset behind that sizing is the 20 MW critical-load deployment for an unnamed California neocloud under the June master services agreement: ten-year initial term, two five-year options, roughly $1.2 billion at full term, expandable to 52 MW and about $3 billion. The 8-K exhibit is here; DCD covered the original MSA.
The physical comp is the useful part. The 20 MW sits in a 60,000 sf retrofit inside a 617,000 sf former manufacturing plant at 415 East Prairie Ronde Street, with $100 to $120 million of retrofit capex. That is 333 W/sf, $5 to $6 million a megawatt of capex, and a debt sizing of $5 to $7.5 million a megawatt, which means the lenders are being asked to fund roughly all of it against a ten-year services contract with a private counterparty. The $1.2 billion headline works out to about $6 million per megawatt-year including services, so this is not a real estate lease and should not be compared to one. It is the financing template every former-crypto sponsor with a 10 to 50 MW industrial shell in the Midwest is going to take to a lender this quarter. Note the slip: revenue start moved from "as soon as late September" to Q4 2026 delivery, and the customer is still unnamed.
Deal specs. Sponsor: Hyperscale Data (NYSE American: GPUS) via Alliance Cloud Services; tenant unnamed California neocloud · Site: Dowagiac, MI, Cass County, ~25 mi N of South Bend; within Dowagiac city limits · Footprint: 60 ksf retrofit within a 617 ksf former manufacturing plant · Load: 20 MW critical, expandable to 52 MW; site at 30 MW today with a 340 MW target including 40 MW behind-the-meter gas (~333 W/sf on the 20 MW retrofit) · Lease: MSA / compute services, 10-yr initial plus two 5-yr options, escalator n/d · Tenant credit: neocloud, private, unnamed · Deal value: ~$1.2B at full term; retrofit capex $100–120M ($5–6M/MW); project debt sized $100–150M ($5–7.5M/MW), rate n/d · Source: 8-K.
TVA's $1.5 Million-a-Megawatt Toll Starts at Megawatt Six, and PowerCompute Signed on September 30 to Miss It
This is a tariff story dressed as an 8-K, and it is the hardest number in the issue. PowerCompute (formerly LM Funding) disclosed on October 6 that its Mississippi subsidiary executed a new contract with Columbus Light & Water on September 30, effective October 1 and running to September 16, 2030, lifting contracted demand at its Columbus site from 8.5 to 11 MW and moving it onto Schedule DCB, the local implementation of TVA's new Large Data Service rate. TVA adopted that rate in August and removed data center load, bitcoin mining included, from the industrial class. The rider attaches a Capacity Commitment Charge of roughly $1.5 million a megawatt on new or expanded data center load above the first 5 MW, with a 2,000 MW first-come cohort for fiscal 2027.
Because PowerCompute's contract was effective before October 1, the charge was zero. On our arithmetic, not the company's, that is about $9 million avoided on the 6 MW above the threshold, plus a returned $300,000 deposit swapped for a bond and no capital contribution required. The sponsor is a crypto-pivot microcap "developing HPC/AI" across 26 MW in Oklahoma and Mississippi, so do not read this as an inference lease. Read it as the entry price for any 5 to 50 MW edge or inference site across TVA's seven-state footprint from here: $1.5 million a megawatt of upfront, non-rent cost on megawatt six and up, before interconnect, before the building. A 30 MW site now carries about $37.5 million of tariff before you pour.
Deal specs. Sponsor: PowerCompute Inc. via US Digital Mining Mississippi LLC; utility Columbus Light & Water (TVA distributor) · Site: Columbus, MS, Lowndes County, Golden Triangle; parcel n/d, within Columbus Light & Water territory · Footprint: n/d · Load: 11 MW contracted, up from 8.5 MW; on-peak curtailment (density n/d) · Lease: owner-operated; power contract through 9/16/2030 on Schedule DCB · Tenant credit: crypto-pivot, Nasdaq microcap · Deal value: $0 capacity charge vs ~$9M implied under the rider (6 MW × ~$1.5M/MW, our arithmetic); $300k deposit returned · Source: 8-K.
Gorilla LOIs 6 MW Running, 30 MW on a Utility Letter, and Will Not Say Where
Gorilla Technology Group, London-based and Nasdaq-listed, said October 9 it signed a non-binding LOI for its first US data center: an operating, revenue-generating, carrier-neutral colo with about 6 MW of utility capacity and written utility support for roughly 30 MW more on an 18-month delivery, a 36 MW site path. Close is targeted for end of November. Diligence on the rent roll and lease terms is underway, and the stated goal is more than 100 MW of US capacity within 12 to 18 months through owned infrastructure, customer-led GPU deployments and project financing. The stock fell about 4 percent, which tells you how the market prices a software company buying a building.
No state, no seller, no utility, no square footage, no price. It makes the issue anyway because it is the third non-traditional buyer in a month to pay for in-place power and an expansion letter rather than a greenfield queue position, and because when the price prints in November it will be a clean $/MW comp on a small operating colo, which the market has very few of. File it.
Deal specs. Sponsor: Gorilla Technology Group (buyer); seller n/d · Site: n/d (US) · Footprint: n/d · Load: ~6 MW existing, ~30 MW additional on utility letter, 36 MW path (density n/d) · Lease: asset acquisition with in-place colo leases; terms n/d; non-binding LOI, close targeted end-November 2026 · Tenant credit: existing colo tenants n/d · Deal value: n/d · Source: Gorilla press release.
What to Watch Next Week
The moratorium tape. Oakland (45 days), Anne Arundel County (to January 2028), Old Town, Maine, and Mendocino County (to August 2028, with a sub-3 MW exemption that effectively defines "edge" as PG&E standard service) all paused data center approvals this week; Allen Township, Ohio capped them at 10 MW and 40 dB. Volusia County's planning commission takes up a large-data-center ban October 15 with a final council reading October 20. Loudoun County's board hears a 12-month pause resolution October 20, the same day Bethlehem, Pennsylvania takes a final vote on its first data center zoning, Hillsboro, Oregon holds a second reading that shrinks eligible zoning from about 6,600 to 608 acres, and Memphis votes on its own 12-month moratorium.
Cipher's $850 million convert. Cipher Mining priced $850 million of senior convertible notes due 2032, with a $150 million shoe, after the close October 13, proceeds to Barber Lake equity. We covered the 20-year lease extension two issues ago; the print tells you what the equity behind it costs.
October 31: Project Matador. Fermi America's lease closing deadline with TensorWave, extended from September 30, falls on the 31st. Fermi signed credit support with AMD October 13. The 222 MW is above our size band; whether the lease actually closes is not.
Gorilla's November close and the price per megawatt on a 6 MW operating colo. WhiteFiber's $60 million Yadkin County, North Carolina close, 60 MW initial with a 200 MW path, is guided to Q4.
Butler County, Kansas returns to its data center regulations October 27.
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.
