Capital decisions
Data Center Site Selection and Industrial Siting
We take candidate parcels down to net buildable acreage after wetlands, floodway, slope, and easements, then compare transmission, fiber, water, zoning, and earthwork. The first 3 are free.
Free preview: 3 properties, delivered 3 business days after we confirm your territory. No card, no call.Photo: Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (CC BY 4.0)
Gross acreage is a marketing number. The figure that matters first is what is left after the wetlands, the floodway, and the slope.
A 220-acre listing that nets 96 buildable acres is a different asset from the one in the brochure. The deciding constraint is often elsewhere — an 11-mile substation run, or a rezoning.
See how the research worksEvidence
The nine constraints that decide an industrial site
Site selection fails on the constraint nobody screened for, so each of these is measured from public data with the point named where a specialist takes over.
| Constraint | Where it comes from | What it settles — and what it does not |
|---|---|---|
| Net buildable acreage | Where it comes fromParcel polygons less wetlands inventory, FEMA floodway, LiDAR slope, and visible easements | What it settles — and what it does notConverts gross listed acreage into a defensible net developable figure and shows where the pad sits. It is a desktop netting, not a boundary survey or a jurisdictional determination. |
| Assemblage complexity | Where it comes fromParcel ownership records across the candidate footprint | What it settles — and what it does notCounts how many owners a site requires, identifies the holdout parcels controlling access, and flags fractional and heirs' ownership. It says nothing about willingness to sell or price. |
| Transmission proximity and voltage | Where it comes fromFederal transmission line and substation datasets, voltage class where published, service territories | What it settles — and what it does notMeasures distance from pad to substation and the voltage class of adjoining lines, the first-order screen for any large load. Capacity and queue position come only from the utility. |
| Fiber and latency position | Where it comes fromPublished long-haul route maps, carrier point-of-presence and exchange locations, path from the site | What it settles — and what it does notBrackets round-trip latency to the nearest exchange and shows whether physically diverse routes plausibly exist. It does not establish lit capacity, available conduit, or pricing. |
| Water and sewer service | Where it comes fromUtility and district service-area boundaries, permitted withdrawal points, treatment capacity, distance to mains | What it settles — and what it does notIndicates whether the site sits inside a service area and how far the nearest main is, which decides whether a water-intensive process is even a conversation. It is not a will-serve letter. |
| Zoning and entitlement path | Where it comes fromMunicipal and county zoning layers, comprehensive plan future land use, overlay districts | What it settles — and what it does notEstablishes whether the intended use is by right, needs a special use permit, or needs a rezoning — a six-month schedule against a twenty-four-month one. It does not predict a council vote. |
| Access and logistics | Where it comes fromRoad functional classification and weight limits, interchange distance, Class I rail alignments | What it settles — and what it does notShows truck routing, interchange distance, and whether a rail spur exists or could plausibly be built. It does not secure a haul route permit or a rail service agreement. |
| Terrain and earthwork burden | Where it comes fromLiDAR-derived slope, relief, and cut-and-fill estimate across the intended pad footprint | What it settles — and what it does notEstimates the earthwork needed for a level pad at your target dimensions, often the largest cost gap between similar candidates. It is not a geotechnical report. |
| Environmental and community context | Where it comes fromEPA facility and cleanup registries, historic aerial imagery, adjacent residential parcel counts | What it settles — and what it does notFlags prior industrial use, nearby regulated facilities, and the residential adjacency that predicts organized opposition. It is not a Phase I assessment. |
Some counties publish attributed, machine-readable zoning and parcel layers; others publish a scanned map and a phone number. Each summary states which were available.
We shorten the list. Specialists close the deal.
Everything in the second list is a licensed or negotiated answer. A desktop screen that pretended otherwise would cost more than it saved.
Settled by the report
- Net buildable acreage after wetlands, floodway, slope, and visible easements, on every candidate
- How many owners and parcels a site requires, and which parcel controls access
- Distance and voltage class to the nearest substation and transmission line
- Whether the intended use is by right, needs a special use permit, or needs a rezoning
- Earthwork burden across the intended pad, and truck and rail access position
Not settled — specialists required
- Available electrical capacity, queue position, interconnection cost, and study timeline
- Water allocation, will-serve commitments, and treatment capacity availability
- Wetland delineation, jurisdictional determination, and Phase I environmental findings
- Geotechnical conditions: bearing capacity, rock, groundwater, and pile requirements
- Land price, seller willingness, title condition, incentives, and the political outcome
The five checks that follow the shortlist
- Open a pre-application conversation with the utility for the specific load and location before spending anything else.
- Commission a boundary survey and a wetland delineation, since the netted acreage is a desktop figure until a delineator signs it.
- Request a will-serve or capacity letter from the water and sewer providers.
- Meet the planning department early to confirm the entitlement path and the realistic schedule.
- Order Phase I environmental and geotechnical work before the option period on the leading candidate expires.
The shortlist gets shorter before the consultants get engaged.
Screening takes days and diligence takes months, so moving one disqualifying question earlier is the whole return.
- 01Define the facility profileTarget pad and net acreage, power and water demand, latency requirement, and the automatic disqualifiers.
- 02Net and measure every candidateWe deduct wetlands, floodway, slope, and easements, then measure transmission, fiber, water, zoning, and terrain identically.
- 03Rank and hand off the diligenceAn analyst orders candidates, states where a jurisdiction published less, and names the specialist for each site.
- Comparable candidate summaries
- One page per site with the same constraints in the same order, and the question most likely to end each candidate.
- Net buildable acreage analysis
- Gross parcel area, each deduction with its source, the net developable figure, and where the usable pad sits.
- Utility, terrain, and access position
- Substation distance and voltage class, fiber and exchange distance, water and sewer position, cut-and-fill across the pad, and road and rail access.
- Entitlement and ownership path
- Current zoning, future land use, the approval route the intended use requires, and the parcel and owner count.
Further reading
How this screen is actually run.
Capacity, consultants, jurisdictions, and other uses.
No — it confirms position, not capacity: distance and voltage class, service-area membership, fiber route, and exchange distance. Capacity, interconnection cost, and will-serve commitments require direct conversations with the utility, the district, and the carriers.
No, and it is not priced as if it did. It replaces the undifferentiated desktop screening that opens a site search and arrives in a form the consultant, the engineer, and the attorney can start from.
Yes, and that is where the framework earns most. The discipline is documenting where jurisdictions differ, because a comparison that hides that variance is worse than no comparison at all.
No — the same netting and constraint framework applies to manufacturing, distribution, cold storage, battery infrastructure, and heavy industry. Only the thresholds change, and the facility profile drives those.
Other property questions we answer with the same workflow.
EV charging and battery storage siting
Smaller-footprint energy siting on existing property: parking geometry and trench runs.
Read the report typeProperty risk and resilience screening
Flood, wind, hail, and wildfire exposure on assets you already own rather than land you are considering.
Read the report typeCustom territory and market analysis
A market question that is not a site search, scoped against the sources that answer it.
Read the report type
Send 3 parcels and see what nets out after the constraints.
Give us 3 candidate sites and your facility profile. We return net buildable acreage, utility position, zoning path, and the disqualifying question for each, in 3 business days, free.
3 properties · 3 business days · no card