What to document before you sell industrial land in 2026

Before selling industrial land in 2026, document four things: distance to the nearest substation and its capacity, the voltage of the nearest transmission service, a utility load-study response with a queue position, and the exact procedural history of every entitlement approval. Those four items separate a warehouse price from a powered-land price, and powered land averaged $584,000 per megawatt in primary US markets in 2026 year to date.

Key takeaways

Substation distance is priced. Inside half a mile: roughly 2x the per-acre price of two-to-five-mile sites (Altus Group, August 2026).
Voltage is priced. 230kV or 500kV service: roughly 2.4x the price of 138kV-and-below service.
Size is priced inversely. Sub-25-acre infill averaged $3.3M/acre; 1,000-plus-acre greenfield averaged $28,000/acre.
The ceiling is real. Starwood Capital paid Fairfax County $166.8M for 42 acres at 3721 Stonecroft Boulevard in Chantilly, Virginia on 24 March 2026 — roughly $4.0M per acre.
Procedure kills deals. The 2,100-acre, 22M sf Virginia Digital Gateway died because hearing notices were not six days apart. Buyers now diligence the notice history.

The Landside Signal

A quarterly brief on powered land, port capacity and air-cargo gateways, plus the Powered Land and Gateway Pricing Benchmarks data file.

Dollar per megawatt and dollar per acre benchmarks by market, with the substation-distance and voltage premiums applied
Every committed United States port capacity opening from 2026 through 2035, with cost, TEU and date
Airport-adjacent rent premiums by gateway, and the constraint map that drives them
The named project pipeline: site, megawatts, developer, power source, status
Sources and periods for every cell. Nothing unattributed.

Bar chart. A baseline parcel two to five miles from a substation at 138kV or below is 1.0x. Within half a mile of a substation is about 2.0x. With 230kV or 500kV service, about 2.4x. — Substation distance and service voltage are the two attributes a landowner can establish before hiring anyone, and they account for most of the dispersion in the market.Source: Altus Group, Where value is created in data center land, August 2026.

Per-acre price relative to a baseline parcel, US data centre land, 2026
Attribute	Multiple of baseline
2–5 miles from a substation, ≤138kV	1.0x
Within half a mile of a substation	2.0x
230kV or 500kV service	2.4x

Parcel size runs the other way: infill under 25 acres averaged $3.3M an acre against $28,000 an acre for greenfield over 1,000 acres, a spread of roughly 120 times.

The document pack that earns a premium

A buyer's first question is never what you want for the land. It is what you can prove.

Power

Utility load-study request and the utility's written response
Interconnection queue position, cluster, and current screening status
One-line diagram of the nearest substation with nameplate and available capacity
Nearest transmission voltage and the distance to the tap point
Interconnection cost estimate and who bears network upgrades
For ERCOT: SB6 readiness — site control, financing evidence, timeline, and the $50,000 per MW security posture
Gas: nearest transmission pipeline, diameter, pressure, and a transporter willingness letter if behind-the-meter generation is contemplated

Water

Source, allocation and permitted withdrawal
Discharge capacity and permit path. Thermal discharge is the friction point, not intake.

Land and entitlement

Current zoning and by-right uses, with the ordinance text
Every approval's procedural record: notice dates, publication proofs, hearing minutes, appeal windows
ALTA survey, Phase I and where indicated Phase II, wetlands delineation, floodplain, geotech
Title with a clean read on easements. Transmission and pipeline easements can be an asset here, not a defect.

Access

Rail frontage and the serving carrier's willingness to serve
Highway access and any required turn-lane or signal improvements
Distance and drayage cycle to the relevant port gate or airport cargo gate
Fiber routes, long-haul carriers present, and distance to the nearest subsea cable landing station

Why timing favours starting early

The Altus finding — that 30 to 40 months of utility coordination, entitlement and tenant negotiation typically precede the moment a transaction becomes publicly visible — is the argument for starting the document pack before you want to sell, not after you have an offer. Owners who begin power documentation two years ahead of a sale are the ones who get a bid from a pool they did not know existed.

Where the buyers are right now

Data center developers and their capital. CBRE's April 2026 investor survey found 55% of respondents planning to increase buying activity by more than 10%, with 78% naming Dallas-Fort Worth and 72% Northern Virginia as the most attractive markets, and 44% targeting opportunistic new development.
Hyperscalers buying directly. Microsoft's FY2026 capex came in at $115.9B. Alphabet guided calendar 2026 to $195 to $205B. Meta guided to $130 to $145B. Amazon spent $98.4B in the first half of 2026 alone, up 72% year on year. Oracle spent $55.7B in FY2026 and guided FY2027 to $70B net.
Crypto-to-AI converters with power but not enough land. TeraWulf's $9.5B Fluidstack and Google joint venture, Cipher Mining's $5.5B fifteen-year AWS lease, Applied Digital's $5B fifteen-year lease, Hut 8's $7B fifteen-year lease, and IREN's $1.9B Microsoft prepayment.
Industrial outdoor storage aggregators. Alterra IOS has acquired more than 470 sites and raised a $100M BMO facility in January 2026, a $244M Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies loan in June 2026, and a $400M Truist and KeyBank refinancing in July 2026. Zenith IOS holds roughly 100 properties at about $1.2B.
Logistics landlords crossing into data centers. GLP carries a roughly 2,500 MW pipeline. ESR holds 260 MW owned or in development against a 1,200-plus MW combined pipeline. Prologis partners with Skybox on greenfield and warehouse conversions.

Get a Landside Read on your parcel.

Get a Landside Read

No fee. One parcel. One page. Usually back within five business days.