Data Center Site Selection
The Criteria in Order, Which Markets Have Capacity, and the Colocation Site Selection Checklist for Leasing or Building
With primary-market vacancy at 1.4 percent, the right facility is the one that can deliver your power on your date. Send us the requirement and we find it, then negotiate the contract before you sign.
Most site selection goes wrong in the first week, when a team tours the facilities it already knows and lets each sales team shape the requirement around its own building. The order on this page is the reverse: write the requirement, find which markets and facilities can take it on your date, then compare them on the same sheet. This guide is written by an advisory practice that runs that search for buyers across the United States and Canada, paid by the provider the buyer chooses. The same practice runs paid site studies for developers and investors choosing land.
Source: CBRE, North America Data Center Trends H1 2026.
Where the Capacity Is: Vacancy by Market
The market you assumed is often not the one with space. Northern Virginia, the largest market in the world, has almost none; Dallas and Silicon Valley have more room, and the rate you can negotiate follows the vacancy. This is why site selection starts with availability rather than with a preferred metro.
Sources: CBRE North America Data Center Trends H1 2026 (Northern Virginia, Chicago, Dallas, primary-market average), CBRE Global Data Center Trends 2026 (Atlanta), CBRE North America Data Center Trends H2 2025 (Silicon Valley). Figures as of October 2026. Free to cite with a link to this page.
Power in kW or MW, density per rack, the markets you would consider, connectivity and compliance needs, term, and the date you need to be live.
A reply from the person who will run your search, with a first read on which markets fit and what to settle before anything goes out.
The RFP to every facility that fits, the bids compared on one sheet, and the rate and terms negotiated before you sign.
The provider you choose pays us. If you have already spoken to one provider, tell us which; we can still run the rest of the market.
Two Kinds of Site Selection: Leasing Space or Building
| Colocation site selection | Selecting a site to build | |
|---|---|---|
| The question | Which market and which facility can serve my requirement, on what terms? | Which land, with what power, can support the building I want to develop? |
| Who asks it | IT and infrastructure teams, AI companies, enterprises moving or growing | Developers, landowners, investors and hyperscalers |
| What decides it | Available capacity on your date, latency, connectivity, density, compliance, total cost | Contracted power, land and zoning, fiber, water, incentives, community acceptance |
| Typical timeline | Eight to thirteen weeks for existing space; longer for preleases | Years, set mostly by the power schedule |
| How we help | We run the search and negotiate the contract; the provider pays us | Site and power feasibility at a fixed fee. See powered land |
Most of this page covers colocation site selection. If you are building, jump to site selection for a new data center.
Data Center Site Selection Criteria: The Checklist
These nine criteria decide where a deployment goes, and together they make a checklist you can use on any building, from a few cabinets to several megawatts. The order is deliberate: each criterion narrows the field before the next is worth checking.
| Criterion | What to check | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Capacity on your date | Space and power available at your density on the date you need it, with the utility power contracted, plus room to grow | In a 1.4 percent vacancy market, most facilities are ruled out here |
| 2. Market and latency | Distance to your users, systems, counterparties and cloud regions; separation from your other sites | Latency is set by distance, about 1 ms round trip per 100 km of fiber at best |
| 3. Connectivity | Carriers in the building, physically diverse fiber paths, cloud on-ramps, internet exchanges | A carrier-neutral building with diverse routes is what keeps you online when one path fails. See data center connectivity |
| 4. Density and cooling | Maximum kW per rack in the specific hall, air or liquid cooling, floor loading | Air cooling tops out near 30 to 35 kW per rack; AI hardware often needs more. See AI and GPU colocation |
| 5. Compliance | Current SOC 2 Type II report, HIPAA business associate agreement, PCI DSS, ISO 27001 as needed | The facility's certifications become part of your own audit. See compliance colocation |
| 6. Resilience | Redundancy of power and cooling, generator runtime and fuel contracts, flood, seismic and weather exposure | Power is the most common cause of serious outages (Uptime Institute); see data center tiers |
| 7. Total cost | Rate per kW or cabinet, escalator, cross-connects, setup, remote hands and power over the full term | The lowest rate is often not the lowest bill; see the colocation pricing guide |
| 8. Contract terms | Expansion rights, renewal terms, power commitment, termination and SLA remedies | Terms move more money than the rate over a multi-year contract; see the data center lease guide |
| 9. Operator and support | Remote hands hours and rates, on-site staff, the operator's track record and financial footing | You will depend on the operator for the whole term |
Colocation Site Selection: Choose the Market, Then the Facility
Colocation site selection runs in two passes. The first picks the market, and four questions settle it. The second picks the facility inside that market, and that is where the checklist above does its work.
Where your traffic and systems are
Put production near the users, systems and counterparties it talks to most, and near the cloud regions it connects to. Your office location is usually the weakest reason to choose a market.
Where capacity actually is
Vacancy runs from a fraction of a percent in Northern Virginia to several percent in Dallas and Silicon Valley, as the chart above shows, and the market with space often beats the one you assumed. See Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, Virginia and Phoenix.
What it costs to be there
Rates differ by market and by submarket: carrier hotels cost more than suburban campuses in the same metro, and the New York metro alone spans zones with very different prices. The data center cost guide has the figures.
What else you need to be near, or far from
A disaster recovery site needs a different grid and weather system from the primary; a trading system needs to be next to its exchange. See disaster recovery site selection.
Once the market is set, compare providers with the provider comparison.
How far is too far? Minimum round-trip latency by fiber distance
Distance sets a floor on latency that no equipment can beat, so it decides how far from users and counterparties a site can be. These are the floors; real routes add more.
MCA calculation from the speed of light in optical fiber, about 200,000 km per second, round trip. Actual latency depends on the fiber route, equipment and carrier, so test on your own network before committing. Free to cite with a link to this page.
Choosing the facility once the market is chosen
Inside the chosen market, the second pass is a short list of questions put to each facility in writing, not on a tour. The answers that matter most are these.
The data center RFP guide turns these into a document every facility answers in the same format, with the price sheet template and the scoring model.
From Shortlist to Signed Contract
Write the requirement first
Measured power draw in kW with growth headroom, density per rack, cabinet count or suite size, carriers and cloud on-ramps, compliance frameworks, market or zone, term, and the date. Nameplate ratings overstate real draw; measure what you use.
Screen the markets for capacity on your date
Start from the vacancy chart above and the market guides, and drop any market that cannot deliver by the date before comparing anything else.
Shortlist the facilities that can plausibly serve it
Chosen for capacity, density and location, not brand. An RFP sent to a facility that cannot deliver wastes a month.
Send one RFP to all of them on the same day
With one deadline and a required price sheet, so every operator competes on the same facts. The data center RFP guide covers the document itself.
Compare the total cost of the term and negotiate the terms before the rate
Expansion rights, renewal cap, ramp and escalator move more money over five years than the headline rate, and they are negotiable before the award, not after.
Send the requirement. You'll hear back within 24 hours from the person who will run your search, and the provider you choose pays us.
Site Selection for a New Data Center
Selecting land to build on is a different exercise, and power leads it. A developer, landowner or investor weighs these criteria, roughly in order:
Power
Megawatts the utility has committed in writing, the date, the tariff and its collateral, and the substation path. A site marketed as powered may be farther from power than the listing suggests, so ask for the utility’s written commitment. See powered land.
Land and zoning
Enough contiguous, buildable acreage for the building, substation and setbacks, and a zoning path the local community will accept.
Fiber
Distance to long-haul routes and diverse paths into the site. See dark fiber.
Water and climate
Water supply if the cooling design needs it, and a climate that allows free cooling for part of the year.
Hazards
Flood zones, seismic and severe weather exposure, which insurers, lenders and tenants all price.
Incentives
Sales tax exemptions and local abatements, and their current legislative status, which changes from year to year.
Six Site Selection Mistakes
Touring before defining the requirement
A tour shapes the requirement around the building you are standing in. Write yours down first, then take it to the whole market at once.
Talking to operators one at a time
Each one prices you as if it were the only choice. The same requirement sent to all of them at once gets different answers.
Comparing rates instead of totals
Escalators, cross-connects and remote hands decide the bill over a multi-year term. Score the total cost of the term.
Trusting a badge instead of a report
Ask for the current SOC 2 Type II report and the BAA, not the logo on the website.
Assuming the hall can take your density
"We support high density" means different things in different buildings. Get the kW per rack for the specific hall, in writing.
Leaving growth to later
With so little capacity available, expansion rights are worth more at signing than they will ever be again.
How We Run Site Selection
You send the requirement
Power, density, markets, connectivity, compliance, term and the date. You'll hear back within 24 hours from the person who will run your search, at no cost.
We screen the markets and build the shortlist
Which markets and facilities can take the requirement on your date, with the density and connectivity you need, across the United States and Canada.
We run the RFP and negotiate the contract
One requirement to every facility that fits, the bids compared on one sheet, and the rate, ramp, escalator, renewal and expansion terms negotiated before you sign. The provider you choose pays us, so it costs you nothing, and your rate is not marked up. If no facility fits, we say so.
For a site to build or buy, the same knowledge of what tenants need runs as a fixed-fee consulting engagement, and the data center developers guide covers who builds at scale. For how placement is paid, see how a data center broker works. If the better answer is wholesale colocation, a managed private cloud, bare metal or staying where you are, we will say so.
Data Center Site Selection: Frequently Asked Questions
What are the data center site selection criteria?
In order: capacity available on your date, market and latency, connectivity and carrier diversity, the density and cooling your hardware needs, compliance, resilience, total cost over the term, contract terms, and the operator's support and track record. For a site to build, power comes first, then land and zoning, fiber, water, hazards and incentives.
What is colocation site selection?
Choosing the market and the facility where your servers will be hosted, and the terms you will host them on. It runs in two passes: pick the market by where your systems are, where capacity exists on your date and what it costs to be there, then pick the facility with a written checklist and a data center RFP sent to every operator that fits.
How do I choose a colocation provider or data center?
Start with the requirement, not the brand: power, density, location, connectivity, compliance and date. Shortlist the operators that can meet it on your date, send them all the same RFP, and compare total cost and contract terms, not just the rate.
Which data center markets have capacity available in 2026?
Very little anywhere: primary-market vacancy is 1.4 percent. Northern Virginia is at 0.2 percent and Atlanta near 1 percent, while Chicago at 2.2 percent, Dallas at 2.8 percent and Silicon Valley at 4.7 percent have more room, according to CBRE. The market with capacity on your date often beats the one you assumed.
How long does data center site selection take?
Eight to thirteen weeks for existing colocation space, from requirement to signed contract, including a three to four week RFP response window. Large or dense requirements that need a prelease on capacity under construction take longer, and the lease may be signed a year or more before delivery. Selecting a site to build takes years, set mostly by the power schedule.
How far should a colocation site be from my users?
Light in fiber adds about 1 millisecond of round-trip latency per 100 km at best, and real routes add more. Latency-sensitive systems belong within a few hundred kilometers of their users or counterparties; many business applications tolerate far more.
How do I choose a disaster recovery site?
Far enough from the primary that one event cannot affect both: a different grid, weather system and fiber route. Within a metro that means a different zone; for critical systems, usually a different market.
What Tier data center do I need?
Most enterprise workloads are well served by Tier III-equivalent facilities, which are concurrently maintainable. Tier IV costs more and suits zero-tolerance systems. A tier claim is only verifiable with the certificate, so ask for it if it matters.
What should I look for in a facility for AI or GPU hardware?
The kW per rack the specific hall can deliver, whether liquid cooling reaches the white space, floor loading and the date the capacity is live with its utility power contracted. Air cooling tops out near 30 to 35 kW per rack, and not every facility marketed for AI can support rack-scale systems on a near-term date.
How do I verify a facility's compliance?
Request the current SOC 2 Type II report and confirm its period and scope cover your space, the HIPAA business associate agreement if you handle patient data, and the PCI DSS attestation if card data is involved. A website badge is not evidence.
What is the difference between site selection and a data center RFP?
Site selection is the whole decision: which market, which facility, on what terms. The RFP is the step inside it that sends the written requirement to every shortlisted facility at once and brings the bids back in one format. Site selection narrows the field; the RFP prices it.
What criteria matter when selecting land for a data center?
Power first: megawatts committed in writing, the date and the tariff. Then contiguous buildable land and zoning, fiber routes, water, flood and seismic exposure, community acceptance and incentives.
Does a broker make site selection cheaper?
For colocation it costs you nothing: the provider pays the broker from its channel budget, whether or not you use one, and the rate is not marked up. What changes is that every qualifying operator competes for your requirement at once, and the contract is negotiated with current market knowledge before you sign.
Start Your Site Selection
Send the requirement: power, density, markets, connectivity, compliance and the date. You'll hear back within 24 hours from the person who will run your search. If staying where you are is the better answer, we will say so. No cost, no obligation, and the provider you choose pays us.
Once you have approached a provider directly, it usually will not work through an advisor on your deal. If you have already spoken to one, tell us which; we can still run the rest of the market.
Markets: New York, Virginia, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Texas, Los Angeles and Canada.
Buyer guides: the data center RFP, the provider comparison, the colocation pricing guide, the data center lease guide and Equinix alternatives.
Moving and growing: data center migration, data center relocation, hybrid cloud, cloud repatriation and GPU rental.
Building and investing: powered shell, data center financing, data center valuation and data center cost.
