While most commercial real estate brokers spend the first ten minutes of a site visit examining ceiling height and loading docks, Logan Freeman, founder of Kansas City-based Midwest CRE Advisors, heads straight for the electrical room. This focused approach has allowed his firm to close edge data center transactions in secondary Midwest markets while many brokers are still learning the basics of inference facilities.
Freeman has developed a repeatable evaluation process for industrial buildings considered for edge data center conversion, starting even before entering the building. The first thing he looks for is external utility infrastructure: a transformer pad, a substation, and the service entrance size. These factors determine whether a building warrants a closer look. "If I see a 2,000-amp service on a 40,000-square-foot building, I'm interested," he explains. "If I see a 400-amp panel, I'm moving on unless there's a clear utility upside story."
Once inside, Freeman's first stop remains the electrical room. He examines switchgear, panel configuration, and existing load capacity—not just what is present, but the cost to upgrade. A building with marginal power but a nearby substation and known expansion headroom presents a different investment case than one with marginal power and no upstream capacity.
Floor load is another critical factor often overlooked. Standard warehouse floors rated for 125 pounds per square foot fall short of the 200 to 300 pounds per square foot required for edge data centers. When structural capacity is insufficient, remediation costs can render an otherwise promising building unworkable. Clear height also matters, but differently than for distribution warehouses. For small to mid-size data centers, 12 to 16 feet is sufficient, while column spacing is more important. Data center operators require open floor space for cabinet rows, and obstructions create layout problems. Column-free or wide-bay floor plans command a premium.
Freeman also examines HVAC and cooling infrastructure, particularly raised floors, existing HVAC units, and any history of the building being used as a critical-environment facility. Former telecom central offices and switching facilities are especially valuable, as they were built for continuous, 24-hour operation and often include battery rooms, generator connections, and redundant cooling systems. "They were designed for 24/7 uptime," Freeman says. Buildings with such prior use can bypass years of fit-up work and millions in capital expenditure, compressing deployment timelines by two years or more amid supply chain delays for critical equipment like behind-the-meter turbines.
Beyond power and structure, Freeman checks fiber entry points and road access for equipment delivery. However, the issue that most often kills deals is something else: "I'm always looking at the roof," he says. "Prior water intrusion on IT equipment is a conversation stopper." A thorough walkthrough for a serious prospect takes about an hour, during which Freeman brings specialists in electrical, structural, and mechanical systems. "By the end of that hour I have a pretty clear picture of whether the adaptive reuse story is a two-million-dollar fit-up or a twenty-million-dollar gut renovation," he notes. The developers who succeed also ask a third question beyond the building itself: how well can they document the transformation? Firms that treat every completed deal as a dataset for the next one—carrying forward project history, coordination records, and site documentation—pull ahead.
The broader principle Freeman applies across every market is: the question to ask about an old industrial site is not what the building is, but what it is connected to. Most buyers only ask the first question; those who ask the second are the ones finding the deals. For closed deal examples and more on Midwest CRE Advisors’ approach, visit their client success stories.
