A 1972 factory in Dowagiac, Michigan just became the clearest public benchmark for what a converted powered site is worth: 20 MW in a matter of months, a ten-year tenant, and a contract value north of a billion dollars if the options are exercised.
Hyperscale Data (formerly Ault Alliance) ended bitcoin mining at its 617,000 sq ft Dowagiac, Michigan facility on September 1, 2026, to focus the site’s power and infrastructure on an incoming AI tenant. The unnamed California-based neocloud signed a lease in June: 20 MW must be operational by Q4 2026, with a path to 52 MW. The initial term is 10 years with two 5-year extensions — roughly $1.2 billion of contract value if fully exercised.
The site runs at 30 MW today with a roadmap to 340 MW, including 40 MW of behind-the-meter natural gas. Hyperscale acquired the former manufacturing plant in 2022, started repurposing it for HPC and colocation in early 2025, and has since divested everything that isn’t data center — CEO William Horne’s view is that converted mining sites carry data center valuations, not mining ones.
Three things in this deal are now market-standard. A neocloud took a Midwest brownfield over a greenfield because the interconnect exists and the timeline is months, not years. The lease is long — 10+5+5 — because the tenant is financing GPUs against it. And the first phase is small (20 MW) with a credible expansion path, which is what lets a lender underwrite the build.
What it means if you’re buying: If you are a neocloud or enterprise looking for near-term megawatts, this is the structure to ask for: an energized site with a phase-one you can occupy inside two quarters, a defined expansion path, and a long NNN-style lease you can raise GPU financing against. Behind-the-meter gas is now a feature, not a compromise — it is the difference between a Q4 2026 delivery and a 2029 queue position. Price the lease on the energized megawatts, not the roadmap.
What to do about it: Our powered-site listings are built around exactly this template. PERSEUS 20 is a 20 MW existing site with a gas expansion path to GW scale; PHOENIX (Kentucky, 50 MW in two 25 MW phases, built-to-suit NNN, ~6–9 months to RFS) and HYDRA (West Virginia, 30 MW by end Q1 2027 and 60 MW by Q2, rack-ready and liquid-cooled) mirror the Dowagiac phasing almost exactly. CENTAURI 60 (Texas, 60 MW built-to-suit) and PEGASUS (15 MW Tier 3, North Carolina) round out the near-term book. Sellers with ex-mining or industrial sites: a 20 MW first phase with an expansion story is what earns the ten-year tenant — list it behind a codename and let us bring the buy side.
Original reporting · datacenterdynamics.com ↗ · Summary and analysis by Ax3
