# Data Center Site Selection Criteria: What Decides a Site | FOUND

The criteria that decide a data-center site, in the order they end sites: local approvals, power, neighbors, usable land, water, fiber, soils, access, incentives.

Canonical: https://lotsfound.com/insights/data-center-site-selection-criteria/

## Data-center site selection: the criteria, in the order they end sites

Every checklist names the same factors. What separates a working method from a checklist is the order, because the early questions eliminate the most land.

## Why order matters

A site can score well on nine factors and fail on one. If that one is a local pause or a power dead end, the other nine were wasted effort. We check the deal-ending questions first and spend the detailed work only on sites that survive them.

## 1. Can it be approved here?

Which government regulates the parcel, whether the use is allowed, by what process, and whether the board has paused it. A county and a town inside it can give different answers. See [how to read a moratorium](/insights/reading-a-data-center-moratorium/) and [a zoning label is only the beginning](/what-we-check/zoning-and-moratoriums/).

## 2. Is there a path to power?

The relationship of the tract to high-voltage transmission and substations, the serving utility, and the obstacles to a connection. Then the questions only the utility can answer: capacity, upgrades, cost, schedule, and a second feed. See [a substation next door is not power](/insights/power-proximity-is-not-capacity/).

## 3. Who are the neighbors?

Homes, schools, and places of worship nearby, and how this community has treated earlier proposals. See [the neighbors decide more sites than the zoning map](/insights/neighbors-and-public-opposition/).

## 4. Is there enough usable, connected land?

Acreage after floodplain, wetlands, stream buffers, slopes, and easements, and whether what remains is in one workable piece. Then whether the site can expand. See [gross acres are not usable acres](/what-we-check/flood-wetlands-soils/).

## 5. Water, wastewater, and fire protection

Who could serve the site, what they report about supply and treatment, and what the provider must confirm. The cooling design changes how much this matters. See [water and sewer](/what-we-check/water-and-sewer/).

## 6. Fiber

Providers on record, nearby interconnection points, and whether separate routes are truly separate. See [fiber nearby is not fiber to the site](/what-we-check/fiber/).

## 7. Ground conditions

Soils, rock, groundwater, and slope, at the level public surveys allow. These decide cost more often than feasibility.

## 8. Environmental history and conservation interests

What has been recorded on and near the land, and any conservation easement that limits use. See [environmental records](/what-we-check/environmental-records/).

## 9. Roads and heavy-haul access

The roads in, bridges and weight postings on the route, and whether a driveway permit is likely. See [access and roads](/what-we-check/access-and-roads/).

## 10. Taxes and incentives

State and local programs can change operating cost for the life of the campus. They rarely rescue a site that fails on the first three.

## Two questions a checklist leaves out

**Is the land actually available, and who can sell it?** Suitability and availability are separate facts. A perfect tract with five heirs and no agreement is not a site yet.

**Who is the buyer?** The same land reads differently to an operator that will hold it and a developer that will prepare and sell it. See [who buys data-center land](/insights/data-center-buyer-types/).

## Questions

### What is the most important factor in data-center site selection?

Power, in the sense of a utility's ability to deliver the load on the project's schedule. In practice a local government's position can end a site even sooner.

### How long does site selection take?

Desktop screening of a candidate takes days. Utility studies, approvals, and engineering take months to years. Screening exists to make sure those months are spent on the right land.

Transactions are handled through a licensed North Carolina real estate brokerage.