Educational Workshop: How to Build and Fund Data Centers Workshop

About This Workshop

A two-day interactive workshop designed for real estate investors, developers, and capital allocators who want to understand—and invest in—the data center asset class.
 

​Led by Daniel English, Managing Partner at Legacy Investing, one of the country’s leading data center developers and investors. Daniel and his team have been developing data centers since before the cloud and have delivered over 2GW with billions invested serving hyperscale, AI and enterprise tenants.

• You’ll learn how to:
   
• ​Understand the data center market: what it is, what’s driving demand, and where opportunities exist
• ​Evaluate site fundamentals: power, fiber, and land constraints that drive value
• ​Compare project types: ground-up, conversions, co-location, hyperscale, and edge facilities
• ​Analyze tenants and leases: how data center revenue models differ from traditional real estate
• ​Underwrite data center investments: ground-up and conversion projects using real models
• Structure capital stacks: how institutional investors and developers partner on these deals
   

You’ll leave with actionable insight into how to invest in data centers–how they work, where the money is made, and what separates winning projects from the rest.

​The Workshop Will Cover

Day One: The Macro Playbook & How Data Centers Work
 

• ​The First Asset Class Built for Machines, Not Humans: How data centers differ from traditional property types—and why they’re now central to the built environment
• ​What’s Driving Demand: AI, cloud migration, and enterprise computing are reshaping global power demand. Understand where growth is coming from—and what markets are next
• ​Powered Land and Site Selection: How power access, fiber connectivity, cooling, and zoning shape feasibility—and why “powered land” has become an asset class of its own.
• ​Project Types & Construction Requirements: From hyperscale to edge to co-location—how different formats are designed, delivered, and monetized
• ​Tenants & Leases: How hyperscalers, colos, Neoclouds, and enterprises contract for capacity. Learn how lease structures differ from real estate norms (power usage, SLAs, uptime guarantees)
• ​Trends & Evolving Dynamics: The rise of AI workloads, demand for high-density cooling, and how capital markets are shifting toward infrastructure-style underwriting
   

Day Two: The Deal Level–How to Underwrite a Data Center Investment
 

• ​Underwriting an Infrastructure Investment, Not Real Estate: Why data centers are valued more like power plants than buildings–and how to reflect that in your models
• ​Case Study 1: Ground-Up Development: Step-by-step underwriting of a new data center project–from site acquisition and utility coordination to lease-up and exit. Includes cost, revenue, and return modeling
• ​Case Study 2: Office-to-Data Center Conversion: How adaptive reuse projects work—what makes a building viable, estimating retrofit costs, and structuring joint ventures between developer and operator
• ​Capital Stack Design & Investor Alignment: How institutional investors, private equity firms, and developers structure deals: co-GP, promotes, sale-leasebacks, and platform-level partnerships
• ​Risk & Return Frameworks: Learn how power pricing, tenant credit, capex exposure, and market selection impact underwriting and deal execution