Powered shell and build-to-suit, sited and structured.

A signed build-to-suit agreement with weak delivery terms is worse than no agreement, because it has consumed the time you would otherwise have spent finding capacity that exists. These are the provisions we work hardest.

1. Power in-service date, contracted separately. Shell completion and energisation are different milestones with different owners, and a finished building without utility power is not capacity. The utility date needs to be in the contract with its own consequence.
2. Liquidated damages that reflect your loss. LDs set at a token daily rate do not motivate a developer whose own delay costs are larger. They need to be sized against what a slip actually costs you, with a termination right at the outer bound.
3. Base building specification, in detail. Floor loading, slab-to-slab height, structural provision for liquid cooling, electrical room sizing, generator yard and water. Retrofitting any of these after the shell is up is expensive or impossible.
4. Land control and permitting status at signature. Whether the developer actually controls the site, and how far through entitlement and permitting it is. Optioned land with an unstarted permit is a very different risk from a shovel-ready pad.
5. Utility documentation. A signed large-load interconnection agreement or a firm capacity commitment letter, not a study result or a verbal indication from the utility.
6. Expansion pads and rights. Adjacent capacity secured at a pre-agreed basis for a defined window. On a campus you intend to grow into, this is the single cheapest term to secure at signature.
7. Who owns the electrical and mechanical plant. It changes capital treatment, maintenance obligation, refresh responsibility and what you hold at the end of the term.
8. Step-in and completion rights. What you can do if the developer stalls or fails. Without a step-in mechanism your only remedy is damages, which does not get the building finished.