How to Build and Fund Data Centers: A New Two-Day Workshop

AI, cloud adoption, and enterprise computing have triggered an unprecedented surge in demand for data centers, dramatically increasing the flow of capital into the sector.

But for most real estate operators and investors, the asset class remains opaque: different underwriting, different tenants, different value drivers, and different risks.

That’s why we’re launching How to Build and Fund Data Centers, a two-day interactive workshop led by Daniel English, Managing Partner at Legacy Investing. Daniel is one of the country’s most experienced data center developers, with more than 2GW delivered and billions invested serving hyperscale, AI, and enterprise tenants.

If you want to understand how data centers really work, evaluate sites with confidence, underwrite deals using real models, and speak the language institutional investors expect—you need this workshop.

• Thursday, December 11: 12:00–1:30pm ET
• Friday, December 12: 12:00–1:30pm ET
• Recordings included for all participants

Sign Up Here

What You’ll Walk Away With

By the end of this workshop, students will have:

• A complete mental model of how the data center ecosystem works: operators, hyperscalers, revenue streams, constraints, and macro drivers
• A site evaluation framework for power access, fiber connectivity, cooling, zoning, and land characteristics that affect feasibility and returns
• Hands-on underwriting experience through two real case studies: a ground-up hyperscale development and an office-to-data-center conversion
• A capital-stack roadmap: how developers, operators, PE firms, and infrastructure investors structure these deals
• Plug-and-play tools and models you can use immediately to evaluate opportunities, pressure test assumptions, and build your investment thesis
• Clarity on risk and return drivers from power pricing and tenant credit to cooling technology and market selection

This workshop is built to be practical, fast-moving, and highly actionable—giving you the tools to enter (or expand in) a sector that’s reshaping the built world.

The Workshop

Day One: The Macro Playbook & How Data Centers Work

• The First Asset Class Built for Machines, Not Humans: Why data centers behave differently from traditional real estate—and why they’re now central to global infrastructure.
• What’s Driving Demand: AI, cloud migration, enterprise workloads, and the power constraints reshaping market selection.
• Powered Land & Site Selection: How power, fiber, cooling, topography, and zoning determine feasibility—and why “powered land” has become its own asset class.
• Project Types & Construction Requirements: Ground-up, conversions, hyperscale, edge, and co-location: what they cost, how they’re delivered, how they make money.
• Tenants & Leases: How hyperscalers, colos, Neoclouds, and enterprises contract capacity—and why leases look nothing like traditional CRE (SLAs, uptime, power usage rights).
• Trends & Evolving Dynamics: High-density cooling, AI workloads, grid constraints, and the shift toward infrastructure-style underwriting.

Day Two: The Deal Level: Underwriting a Data Center Investment

• How to Underwrite an Infrastructure Investment: Why data centers are valued like power plants—not traditional real estate assets—and how to translate that into your financial model.
• Case Study #1: Ground-Up Development: Step-by-step underwriting of a new hyperscale-ready project from site acquisition and utility coordination to lease-up and exit.
• Case Study #2: Office-to-Data Center Conversion: What makes a building viable, how to estimate retrofit costs, and how developers partner with operators in adaptive-reuse deals.
• Capital Stack Design & Investor Alignment: How institutional investors, PE firms, and developers structure co-GPs, promotes, sale-leasebacks, and platform-level raises.
• Risk & Return Frameworks: How power pricing, tenant credit, cooling requirements, capex exposure, and market selection shape returns.

Who’s Teaching

Daniel English: Managing Partner, Legacy Investing – One of the leading data center developers and investors in the U.S. With more than 2GW delivered, Daniel has spent his career building next-generation digital infrastructure—from e-commerce logistics facilities to hyperscale data centers powering the age of AI.

Format & Access

• Two live 90-minute sessions
• Pre-read deck and case studies
• Post-workshop access to Circle with recordings, underwriting models, and sample deal materials
• Downloadable slides, templates, and financial models

Frequently Asked Questions

• Will I receive the slides, models, and materials? Yes—everything used in the sessions is included.
• What if I can’t attend live? All registered participants receive full session recordings.

Ready to learn how to build—and fund—the infrastructure powering AI?

Sign Up Here

-Brad and Paul