Powered Shell Data Center
What a Powered Shell Is, Powered Shell vs Turnkey, What It Costs and What It Returns
A powered shell is a data center building delivered with power and cooling in place, where the tenant funds the fit-out. Whether it leases is decided by four specifications fixed at design. We advise on them before the slab is poured.
Scope My SiteSite reviews from $45,000. Scope and fee confirmed in writing before work starts.
A powered shell data center is a building delivered with electrical service, cooling plant, structural capacity and connectivity in place, where the tenant funds the interior fit-out. The landlord provides the envelope and the power; the operator or end user provides everything inside the white space. It is one of the ways a site owner can turn power into income, and for developers it is often the one that fits what they already do. The split moves 60 to 70 percent of total fit-out cost off the developer's balance sheet. Powered shells produce the lowest revenue per kilowatt of the structures available to a site owner and often the highest return on capital deployed, and a powered shell is the only speculative structure that can be leased before the building is finished. Whether a specific shell will lease comes down to four things fixed at design: contracted power with an energization date, floor loading, whether the cooling loop reaches the white space, and physical route diversity on the fiber.
MCA calculation, round numbers. Revenue is broadly comparable across all three because data center leases price per kilowatt; floor area, cooling, structure and the tenant list are not. Free to cite with a link to this page.
Send the power position, the site plan and where the design stands. You'll hear back within 24 hours from the principal who would run the engagement, with a first read on whether a powered shell fits and what the building needs to be to lease.
What a Powered Shell Includes
There is no universal standard, which is the first thing to understand. Powered shell means different things in different deals, and the line between landlord scope and tenant scope is negotiated rather than assumed.
A typical split, not a standard. The dashed line is the demarcation point, and every lease draws it in a different place. Each item that moves to the landlord's side raises the rent you can charge and the capital you commit.
Where the line falls is a commercial decision, not a technical one. Including more electrical and mechanical work raises the rate you can charge and the capital you commit. Getting that boundary right for a specific site and tenant profile is part of what a consulting engagement settles.
Powered Shell vs Turnkey, Warm Shell and Cold Shell
"Data center shell" covers a range of deliveries, from an empty building to a fitted hall. These are the terms buyers, tenants and lenders use, and what each one means.
Cold shell
Structure and envelope only.
Warm shell
Shell plus basic utilities to the building.
Powered shell
Building, power to a demarcation point, cooling plant, connectivity.
Turnkey
Fitted white space, ready for equipment.
Build to suit
Designed and built for a signed tenant.
| Cold shell | Warm shell | Powered shell | Turnkey | Build to suit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What is delivered | Structure and envelope only | Shell plus basic utilities to the building | Building, power to a demarcation point, cooling plant, connectivity | Fitted white space, ready for equipment | A facility designed and built for a signed tenant |
| Who funds the fit-out | Tenant, including power and cooling | Tenant, including most power and cooling | Tenant, inside the white space | Landlord | Negotiated; often landlord, recovered in rent |
| Capital per megawatt | Lowest | Low | Moderate | High | High, but committed against a lease |
| Revenue per kilowatt | Lowest | Low | Low to moderate | Higher | Set by the lease |
| Time to tenant occupancy | Longest | Long | The tenant's fit-out period | Fastest | Construction period, but committed up front |
| Typical term | Long | Long | 10 to 20 years | 5 to 15 years | 15 years and up |
| Who it suits | Tenants who want to build everything themselves | Operators with their own power strategy | Operators, hyperscalers and AI companies that want control of the hall | Tenants who want to move in quickly | A tenant with a defined requirement before construction |
Powered Land and Powered Shell Are Not the Same Thing
Powered land is a site with utility capacity secured but no building. A powered shell is a building already constructed with that capacity brought into it. Powered land trades on the strength of the interconnection, the acreage and the entitlement position: it is a land deal with a utility agreement attached. A powered shell trades on all of that plus the structure, the mechanical plant and a delivery date. Powered land is the earlier stage and the cheaper entry; a powered shell is closer to revenue and commands a higher price, because the buyer is not carrying construction risk on the building.
What Makes a Data Center Shell Leasable
Four things determine whether an operator or end user will take a shell, and three of them are fixed at design.
1. Contracted power, with a date
The single most important number, and the one most often overstated. Energized capacity, capacity contracted with a date, and capacity a utility has indicated is available are three different things. Tenants underwrite the first two; so do appraisers and lenders. See the power ladder.
2. Floor loading
Measured as design live load in pounds per square foot, and found in the structural general notes rather than the architectural drawings. ANSI/TIA-942 sets 150 psf as a minimum and 250 psf as recommended for a data hall; Intel recommends 350 psf for high-density data centers. Rack-scale AI racks weigh roughly 1.5 tons each, and standard industrial slabs are often specified at 125 to 250.
3. Cooling architecture
Whether facility water reaches the white space, or only the plant room. Air cooling has a practical ceiling near 30 to 35 kW per rack; above that, liquid cooling stops being optional, and retrofitting a loop into a finished building costs several times what stubbing it in at construction would have. Tenants will also specify redundancy against a tier standard.
4. Connectivity
Carrier count matters less than physical route diversity. Two providers sharing one pole line is one path with two logos on it. Tenants with uptime commitments ask for route maps, not carrier lists.
Establishing all four for a specific building is the first phase of a data center consulting engagement. The output is a density ceiling by zone rather than a single figure, because portions of a floor often support more than the rest, and that ceiling determines which operators are worth approaching at all.
How the Arithmetic Works
Take a building with 10 MW of utility service. After the electrical and cooling overhead a facility carries, roughly 7 MW reaches the equipment. That supports about 700 racks at 10 kW, about 230 racks at 30 kW, or 50 to 58 racks at the 120 to 140 kW of a rack-scale AI system: three completely different buildings from one electrical service. Now run it the other way. A developer who lays out 1,500 cabinets across the floor and then checks the power has designed for about 4.7 kW a cabinet, enterprise density from a decade ago, in a market where new AI deployments start above 40 kW. The hall is sized for a tenant that is disappearing. That error is common because the layout gets drawn from how many cabinets the floor will hold rather than what the power will support, and it is cheap to correct on a drawing and expensive after the slab is poured.
That is the moment this analysis is worth most. Send the drawings you have, even preliminary ones, and we will tell you what the building can serve, which tenants that opens or closes, and what would change it.
Powered Shell Economics: Cost and Return
What a powered shell costs
All-in data center construction runs $8.9 million to $23.3 million per MW in the US and Canada, according to Cushman & Wakefield's 2026 cost guide, with AI-ready facilities at the top of the range. Electrical infrastructure accounts for 40 to 45 percent of hard costs, and in a powered shell most of the electrical spend above the demarcation point sits with the tenant. The developer's capital per megawatt is therefore a fraction of a turnkey delivery; exactly how much depends on where the line is drawn. See data center cost.
What it returns
Powered shells earn less per kilowatt than turnkey and more per dollar of capital. For scale, Digital Realty guided to an 11.5 percent average expected stabilized yield on its development pipeline in mid-2026, at institutional cost of capital and market land basis. A developer already holding the land and building the structure carries a lower incremental basis, which is where the case for a powered shell usually comes from.
Why timing matters
A powered shell can be leased before completion, because the tenant is buying a building rather than a service. A retail facility has to be finished and then filled one cabinet at a time, which can take years. Pre-leased assets trade at materially different capitalization rates than speculative shells.
Yield on cost is the figure most developers want and the hardest to source, because achievable rent per kilowatt in a specific submarket is not published. We model it in ranges with the assumptions stated and sensitivity shown on rate and lease-up timing, the way developers evaluate any other asset class. For how the lease itself is structured, see the data center lease guide and wholesale colocation.
We model capital, rent per kilowatt, lease-up and exit value for powered shell, turnkey and build to suit against your actual basis, with the assumptions stated and the sensitivity shown. You'll hear back within 24 hours from the person who will run the engagement.
From $45,000. Every engagement is scoped to the question in front of you, so the fee is set once we know what the work needs to answer.
When a Powered Shell Is the Right Structure
The owner is a developer, not an operator
Retail colocation is not a different investment; it is a different business, with a sales function, remote hands, security staffing and churn. A powered shell keeps the owner doing what they already do.
Capital is the constraint
A budget that would fit out two megawatts turnkey delivers a shell several times that size, and stranding electrical capacity you have already contracted is expensive.
Speed to a signed tenant matters
A powered shell can be committed before the building is finished; a turnkey or retail facility generally cannot.
When it fits less well
When the site is too small for a single operator to want, when the power position is uncontracted, or when the owner wants to be in the colocation business.
What Gets Locked at Design
Three decisions cannot be reversed economically once construction proceeds: floor loading, which sets the density ceiling and therefore the tenant list; slab-to-slab clear height, which governs whether overhead distribution and containment fit; and whether the cooling loop is stubbed to the white space or stops at the plant room. Everything else, including the interior layout, the electrical distribution inside the hall and the cooling equipment itself, remains a fit-out decision. That is precisely why a powered shell strategy is decided before the shell goes up rather than after.
Four Common Mistakes
Designing from cabinet count rather than from power
The most frequent error we see. A floor plan is drawn to fit as many cabinets as the space allows, then the electrical service is checked against it. In a data center the power sets the ceiling, and the layout follows from the density the building is meant to serve.
Treating a utility indication as contracted capacity
An assurance that megawatts are available is worth far less in a lease negotiation than an executed agreement with an energization date.
Assuming carrier presence equals route diversity
Two providers on the same physical path is a single point of failure, however it reads on a marketing sheet.
Finishing too much
Completing white space that a tenant will want configured its own way is capital spent twice.
Each of these is cheap to correct at design and expensive afterward. They are also the kind of thing a real estate adviser and an engineering firm can both miss, because neither is asked who will lease the building.
What This Page Cannot Tell You
What your building can serve
That comes from the structural general notes, the electrical single-line diagram and the mechanical drawings. Floor loading in particular is almost never on the architectural set.
Which operators would consider it
That requires knowing their footprint gaps, their expansion patterns, whether they lease shells or develop their own, and what they are actively looking for. Published reports do not contain it.
What rent per kilowatt is achievable
Rates are negotiated privately and not published outside the largest markets. Secondary-market pricing has to be established from operator conversations.
What any of it returns
Yield on cost depends on your basis in the land, what you have committed to the structure, your capital position and your required return. Two identical buildings produce very different numbers.
What your building can serve, which operators would take it, what rent it can achieve and what it returns, in writing at a fixed fee agreed before work starts.
Working Out Which Structure Fits a Site
Metro Colo Advisory advises developers and investors on exactly this question. A full engagement covers the building envelope (what the site can serve and at what density, given power, floor loading, cooling, clear height and plant area); operator fit (which operators match the site and market, with the reasoning for each); market context (competing supply and what tenants at each density tier require); yield on cost across powered shell, turnkey and build to suit against a defined budget; connectivity and route diversity; and a specification and recommendation sequenced against your construction timeline. Engagements are fixed-fee, typically $45,000 to $195,000 depending on scope. We design nothing and operate nothing, and our consulting is paid by the client, not by any provider. Separately, we place enterprise and AI requirements into facilities nationally, which is how we know what tenants at each density tier actually ask for. See data center consulting and due diligence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a powered shell data center?
A building delivered with electrical service, cooling plant, structural capacity and connectivity in place, where the tenant funds the interior fit-out. The landlord provides the envelope and the power; the tenant provides the racks, power distribution, cooling equipment inside the hall and everything else in the white space.
What is the difference between a powered shell and a turnkey data center?
A turnkey data center is delivered fully fitted out and ready for servers, with the developer funding the fit-out and recovering it through a higher rent. A powered shell is delivered with power, cooling plant, structure and connectivity, and the tenant funds and builds the interior. A powered shell gives the tenant control and keeps most fit-out cost off the developer's balance sheet; turnkey is faster for the tenant to occupy and needs materially more developer capital per megawatt.
What is a warm shell data center?
A shell delivered with basic utilities to the building but without the full electrical and mechanical plant of a powered shell. The tenant takes on more of the power and cooling build-out than in a powered shell, and less than in a cold shell.
What is a cold shell data center?
The structure and envelope only, with little or no power or mechanical infrastructure. The tenant builds almost everything, which suits operators with their own design standards and long timelines.
What is a data center shell?
The building before the data center fit-out: structure, envelope and, depending on the deal, some or all of the power and cooling plant. Cold, warm and powered shells are points on that range; turnkey is the fully fitted end.
What is a data center fit-out?
Everything installed inside the white space to make it operate: racks and containment, power distribution and UPS, cooling distribution and in-row or rear-door cooling, fire suppression, network, access control and monitoring. In a powered shell the tenant funds and builds it.
How much does a powered shell cost to build?
Materially less per megawatt than a turnkey facility. All-in data center construction runs $8.9 million to $23.3 million per MW in the US and Canada, and a powered shell moves most of the fit-out, typically 60 to 70 percent, to the tenant. The exact figure depends on how much electrical and mechanical work sits above the demarcation point, which is negotiated deal by deal.
What floor loading does a powered shell need?
ANSI/TIA-942 sets 150 pounds per square foot as a minimum and 250 as recommended; Intel recommends 350 for high-density data centers. The number appears in the structural general notes, not the architectural drawings, and it is the specification most often missing when a developer first approaches the question.
Can a powered shell be leased before it is finished?
Yes, and that is one of its main advantages. Because the tenant is buying a building rather than a service, a lease can be signed off drawings and rent can commence at delivery, rather than after a multi-year lease-up.
Who leases powered shells?
Colocation operators expanding into a market without developing it themselves, enterprises and hyperscalers with large single-tenant requirements, and increasingly AI infrastructure companies that want control of the fit-out to match their own hardware.
Powered shell or build to suit?
If a credible tenant is already committed, build to suit is usually stronger, because the lease is signed before the capital is spent and the building is designed to one requirement. A powered shell suits a developer building ahead of a named tenant, keeping the design flexible for several tenant types.
What is the difference between powered land and a powered shell?
Powered land is a site with utility capacity secured but no building; it trades on the interconnection, acreage and entitlements. A powered shell is a building with that capacity brought into it, closer to revenue and priced higher because the buyer carries no construction risk on the structure.
Decide Before the Shell Goes Up
If you hold a site with power and have not yet decided what to build, send the power position, the site plan and where the design stands. You'll hear back within 24 hours from the principal who would run the engagement, with a first read on which structure fits and what the building needs to be to lease. If a powered shell is the wrong answer for the site, we say so.
Floor loading, clear height and the cooling loop. Get them right on the drawing and the tenant list stays open.
Developing and investing: data center developers, data center valuation, data center consulting, powered land, build to suit, due diligence, data center financing and site selection.
The numbers and the lease: data center cost, wholesale colocation, the data center lease guide and data center tiers.
Density and markets: AI and GPU colocation, direct to chip cooling, Atlanta, Dallas, Northern Virginia and Chicago.
