Data center land prices follow megawatts, not soil
Recent data center land deals have cleared from about $330,000 an acre (a 1,700-acre Pennsylvania assemblage beside a nuclear plant) to about $6.3 million an acre (97 entitled acres in Loudoun County, Virginia). Colliers puts powered land near $944,000 an acre against about $316,000 for industrial. The spread is the power path, not the soil.
There is no national dollars-per-acre. Queued capacity is not powered land. A will-serve letter is not an interconnection agreement. Land with only an option and a queue filing (Stage 1) does not sell at the price of land with contracted power (Stage 3).
Data center land price (definition). What a buyer will pay is the option value of the megawatts they can underwrite at that site, in that market, this year.
Queued land is a study request.
Contracted power is an executed interconnection agreement (IA) or a permitted behind-the-meter (BTM) package.
Those two are not comps.
Why one acre price does not travel
Price follows power quality and the ISO. Queued land is not priced like contracted power. The definition of the power claim lives on the powered-land page: queued is not powered land.
Hines estimates about 40,000 acres of powered land are needed over five years. That is demand for powered land, in the bankable sense. How much land those campuses actually take is how much land data centers need.
Recent data center land deals
These are closed or announced US land trades from 2025-2026 with a primary or first-hand source; each deal links to it. A dollars-per-acre cell marked * divides a sourced price by sourced acreage. None of them is a bid.
| Deal | Date | Acres | Price | $/acre | MW | Power |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Switch, Apex, North Las Vegas, Nev. | Sep 2026 | ~176 | ~$196M | ~$1.11M* | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| STACK / Blue Owl, Culpeper County, Va. | Aug 2026 | 71 | $66.4M | ~$935K* | Not disclosed | Entitled |
| Stream / Plug Power, Graham, Tex. | Jul 2026 | 66 | Up to $76.5M | ~$758K at close* | 164 MW | Queued |
| TA Realty / JK Land, Sterling, Loudoun County, Va. | Jun 2026 | 9.82 | $60M | ~$6.11M* | Not disclosed | Entitled |
| QTS / Blackstone, Salem Township, Pa. | Mar 2026 | ~1,700 | $586M | ~$330K (WSJ avg) | Not disclosed | Entitled |
| Amazon / BlackChamber, Prince William County, Va. | Feb 2026 | 44 | $120M | ~$2.73M* | Not disclosed | Entitled |
| Amazon / Stanley Martin, Prince William County, Va. | Nov 2025 | 188.5 | $700M | ~$3.71M* | Not disclosed | Entitled |
| SDC / JK Land, Twin Creeks, Loudoun County, Va. | Nov 2025 | 97 | $615.05M | ~$6.34M* | Not disclosed | Entitled |
| Novva / VanTrust, Apex, North Las Vegas, Nev. | Aug 2025 | ~205 | $181M | ~$883K* | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| STACK / Peterson, Stafford County, Va. | Jan 2025 | 504 | $302.3M | ~$600K* | 1.8 GW planned | Entitled |
Graham is land plus 164 MW of interconnection assets, not dirt alone. The $50 million at close over 66 acres is the starred figure. Up to $26.5 million more waits on the load capacity confirmed in the final IA.
The 44-acre Prince William overlay purchase includes some office and industrial buildings. The $330,000 Pennsylvania figure is the Wall Street Journal’s stated average across about 1,700 acres and 96 families.
What those acre prices actually bought
Anecdotes are not a national acre formula. They are what a specific buyer paid for a specific power path.
Northern Virginia is the high print, and it is still not one number. The National Association of Home Builders (August 2026) recorded SDC Capital Partners paying about $615 million for 97 acres in Loudoun County, about $6.3 million per acre, and Amazon paying about $700 million for about 189 acres in Prince William County. The same brief put Loudoun’s 2025 median land near $125,000 per acre. That is not a 50x “data center premium” you can apply to a farm. It is entitled, fiber-rich, Data Center Alley dirt versus a countywide median that includes everything else.
TA Realty paid about $6.1 million per acre for 9.82 acres in Sterling that already had a site plan for a two-story hall. The off-market deal closed 8 June 2026 (Data Center Dynamics, 13 July 2026). The seller called that “the market value for fully entitled, site plan-approved data center ground.” Entitlement is in the price. A queue receipt is not.
QTS / Blackstone’s Salem Township assemblage sat next to transmission serving a gas plant and Talen’s Susquehanna nuclear station, inside a township overlay that already allowed data centers by right. Infrastructure adjacency plus entitlement, not soil.
Colliers’ 2026 Data Center Marketplace Report put powered land at about 1.63-2.5x industrial land over the prior 24 months, and more than 3x in Northern Virginia and Northern California, with a published powered-land average near $944,000 per acre against about $316,000 industrial. Colliers’ published mean, not a bid you can take to a farm in Ohio.
Avison Young told Bisnow that Q1 2026 data-center land sales were about $3.3 billion across 16 sites, 30 percent of US development-site spend. CNBC (6 September 2026), citing Avison Young, put first-half 2026 purchases near $6 billion, up 79 percent year over year, and about 27 percent of US development sites. Fewer trades, higher tickets. The sites that move have power quality.
Cushman & Wakefield’s 2026 Data Center Development Cost Guide answers construction dollars per megawatt. It does not answer dirt. Broker commentary in Ohio has put ag-to-data-center multiples at 5-10x farm values. Treat that as commentary, not a comp.
Price drivers: existing megawatts versus queued
| What is in the folder | Power quality | What people use as a comp | What actually prices |
|---|---|---|---|
| GIS overlay, acres, near 345 kV. | Desktop only | Neighbor's sale, LoopNet ask. | Option money, if that. |
| Large-load or interconnection application plus deposits. | Queued | Powered-land averages. | A discount to an assembler, and only if the queue is assignable. Withdrawal risk is in the price. |
| CUP / rezoning, appeal closed, studies or a real LOA. | Entitled / Confirmed expansion | Shovel-ready flyer. | Specialist developer, with a haircut for the remaining study clock. |
| Load already on the meter. | Existing | Industrial neighbor. | The only row that is already powered. Still not a campus. |
| Executed IA / firm service, or permitted BTM. | Stage 3 | Colliers powered-land premium. | Infra PE, neocloud, hyperscaler diligence. This is the premium the reports describe. |
| Turbines on a slide. | BTM claimed | BTM permitted | Speculator money. |
ERCOT was tracking about 474 GW of large-load interconnection requests as of August 2026, about 90 percent data centers. Most queue filings never become campuses. A four-to-ten-year study clock (Google / Marsden Hanna, January 2026) is a schedule risk. It is not a land value.
Most of the PJM and MISO interconnection queue is generation. A data-center site lives on the load side: offtake at a substation, not injection from a solar farm.
The site readiness checklist is the folder that tells you which row you are on. Do not price against a row you have not documented.
What Stage 1 prices like versus Stage 3
The two sales clear different numbers because they underwrite different megawatts.
| Compare | Stage 1 queued | Stage 3 contracted |
|---|---|---|
| What is in the price | Exclusive option / PSA / ground lease / deed, plus a queue or large-load filing plus deposits. | The land plus an executed IA or a permitted BTM package, plus entitlements that survived appeal. |
| What the print looks like | Option money, or a discount to Stage 3. Withdrawal risk is in the number. | The Colliers-class premium, in that ISO, that year. |
| What is not in the price | Megawatts on the meter. | A national acre formula. |
| Who pays that number | Assembler. Specialist developer at a discount if the queue is assignable. | Infra PE, neocloud, hyperscaler diligence. |
A will-serve letter is not an IA. Who shows up for that packet is who buys an option + queue.
FAQ
Why do acre prices vary so much by county?
Because the megawatts, the ISO, and the entitlement are different.
Loudoun entitled ground has cleared about $6.3 million per acre against a 2025 county median near $125,000.
Salem Township cleared about $330,000 per acre next to nuclear and transmission.
Is queued land priced like powered land?
No.
Queued land is a study request with withdrawal risk.
Powered land is existing, confirmed, contracted, or permitted BTM.
Do more acres get a higher price per acre?
No.
Buyers underwrite megawatts, not a national acre formula.
A 9.82-acre Sterling pad at about $6.1 million per acre and a 1,700-acre Pennsylvania assemblage at about $330,000 per acre are both data center land.
What does Colliers' powered-land average actually measure?
A published mean for land Colliers is willing to call powered, against industrial land, over the prior 24 months.
About $944,000 versus about $316,000, or 1.63-2.5x, and more than 3x in Northern Virginia and Northern California.
It is a ratio against industrial, in named markets.
What is inside a Stage 1 land price?
Exclusive site control plus a queue or large-load filing plus deposits.
That is option money, or a discount to Stage 3, with withdrawal risk in the number.
It is not contracted megawatts.
Why did Stream withhold part of the Graham price?
The earnout, up to $26.5 million of $76.5 million, waits on the load capacity confirmed in the final interconnection agreement.
Even a sophisticated buyer priced the last third to the IA, not the queue position.
Sources
- National Association of Home Builders, Servers Over Shelter, August 2026.
- Data Center Dynamics, SDC Twin Creeks purchase, 7 November 2025. Dan Swinhoe, citing property records.
- Virginia Business, Amazon Devlin Tech Park purchase, 18 November 2025. Katherine Schulte. Closed 5 November 2025. 188.5 acres.
- Data Center Dynamics, TA Realty Sterling purchase, 13 July 2026. Dan Swinhoe. Closed 8 June 2026.
- The Keystone, citing the Wall Street Journal, QTS / Blackstone Salem Township assemblage, 28 July 2026. $586 million, about 1,700 acres, 96 families, about $330,000 an acre.
- Data Center Dynamics, Plug Power Graham / Stream sale, 15 July 2026. Dan Swinhoe. 66 acres, 164 MW, up to $76.5 million.
- Plug Power, Graham / Stream press release, 13 July 2026. Price and earnout. The IR does not state 66 acres.
- Commercial Observer, STACK / Peterson Stafford purchase, 28 January 2025. Nick Trombola, citing the Business Journals. $302.3 million, 504 acres, 1.8 GW planned.
- Data Center Dynamics, STACK Culpeper purchase, 5 August 2026. Dan Swinhoe. $66.4 million, 71 acres.
- Data Center Dynamics, Novva Apex purchase, 29 August 2025. Dan Swinhoe, citing the Las Vegas Review-Journal. $181 million, about 205 acres.
- Data Center Dynamics, Amazon 44-acre overlay purchase, 14 April 2026. Dan Swinhoe, citing the Business Journals. $120 million, 44 acres. Closed February 2026.
- FOX5 Las Vegas, Switch Apex purchase, 14 September 2026. Tom Aizenberg, citing county records. About $196 million, roughly 176 acres.
- Colliers, US Data Center Marketplace Report, 2026.
- Avison Young via Bisnow, Q1 2026 data-center land sales, 28 May 2026.
- CNBC, citing Avison Young, first-half 2026 data-center land purchases, 6 September 2026.
- Utility Dive, citing Governor Abbott, ERCOT large-load queue about 474 GW, 5 August 2026.
- Network World, Google / Marsden Hanna on interconnection timelines, 15 January 2026.
- Hines, Power Play: The Emerging Powered Land Opportunity, 2025-26.
If the files are already in a folder, grade which row they are on. Cashpian is a gated room for that packet. It is not a listing portal. It does not sell land or transfer queue positions.